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#the lazarus pit just wants what’s best for jason but jason wants to cause problems
undertheredhood · 11 months
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broke: the lazarus pit induces psychotic rage on anyone who uses the pit as a price for being healed, and thus they cannot be held accountable for their actions while experiencing 'pit madness'
woke: the lazarus pit is trying to protect and help jason be happy, but jason is super unhinged and wants to cause problems
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disaster-biraven · 9 months
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The Lazarus Problem Chapter 3
Jasonette Ch1 Ch2 Ch3(you are here) Ch4 ~ Masterlist
Ao3 Dedicated to @girl-in-thechair
Marinette didn’t forget, per say, to try and find Jason. It’s just dealing with the Bats takes a lot of attention, and she was afraid of what she’d find. Tikki would call it procrastinating, but Marinette calls it protecting her sanity. It was still bugging her, and it seemed like she was seeing him everywhere. Once she thought she saw him in the background of a video about the latest Wayne Gala, and another time could have sworn he was outside a coffee shop near Wayne Enterprise. Marinette convinced herself in was a reflection or something, cause no one was around by the time she made it outside.
Once she finally got around to looking up his name, she almost cried at how easy it was. Jason had managed to get adopted by Bruce Wayne, of course he did. While she vaguely knew about Bruce Wayne and that he adopts kids, the last time she was in Gotham there was only one. And she didn’t try and keep up with that in Paris, Marinette was busy building a new life. Looking at the timeline, he was adopted really soon after they had been separated. Reaching out to them wouldn’t be easy, much less trying to run into him. ~
Her answer to her problem came in the form of a commission request a week later. She had finally opened them up again after finishing her move. Tim Drake had reached out for the whole Wayne family, needing clothes for the next charity gala. He was a big fan of MDC and had always wanted to commission her. Apparently Tikki’s luck was still working for her.
After reaching out and setting up an appointment, all Marinette was left with was nerves about the meeting with the Bats. But she had found Jason and the two sources of the Lazarus pits. So now all she had to do was reconnect with Jason, and then convince hyper-paranoid vigilantes that she was there to help. Fun.
The meeting with the Bats was setting to take place on Wayne Enterprise, the tallest building around. Most likely to keep random Gothamites from seeing most of the Bat family and an unknown meeting at 2am. It seemed like Lyca had gotten there first, but she knew better. At least one person was surveying the area, and it was only a matter of time til the rest got there.
Sure enough, five minutes later the faint sound of boots hit the gravel. She turns to face Batman and Red Hood. While the Bat sizes her up, Red Hood decided to make introductions.
“Batman meet Lyca, Lyca this is Batman. Uh, and you both already know me…”
“How do we know you really mean to help with the Lazarus pits? You very well could be a spy sent from the League of Assassins?” Batman waits impatiently for her to answer, probably so he can continue interrogating her.
“Do you know Ladybug and Chat Noir? And that they have Miraculous that they used?” Lyca points to her necklace, “I have the Fox Miraculous. I wasn’t Rena Rouge, but I did help the heroes in Paris. Now that Hawkmoth has been stopped, Gotham is the most unbalanced place. And how I can best help with that is helping you with the Lazarus pits.”
As expected, bringing up the Miraculous threw Batman off. She was aware that the Justice League had been looking for her. One of the reasons they hadn’t found her yet was because of the Miraculous magic, and her luck. If partly revealing herself help gain their trust, so be it. She could see the cogs in Batman’s head switch gears.
“I’ve been trying to get into contact with Ladybug, would you be willing to help with that?”
“She is already aware of that, the most I can do is pass along a message.” She wasn’t ready to step back into the earrings, and she figured this would at least get him of her back for now. Red Hood then spoke up,
“How would you even help with the Lazarus pits? I mean, I believe you but we’ve already looked into healing it and hit a dead end.”
“The pits were originally made by a wish using the cat and ladybug miraculouses. Ladybug and Chat Noir have given me the tools necessary to reverse the effects. I can delve more into it closer to when we actually do it.”
Red Hood seemed to accept that. Batman, however, seemed to still have some hang ups.
“I will reach out to Wonderwomen, and look into the fox miraculous. She may want to meet you.” Lyca nodded.
“That’s reasonable, if you want to reach me use this,” She handed Red Hood a phone Max invented that could connect to the miraculous and the Kwamis. “It’s untraceable both ways, and reaches me directly.” She didn’t feel the need to mention she could trace it if she really needed to. In case she ever needed to get the phone back, if it fell into the wrong hands.
Batman obviously wanted to ask more questions, but Marinette needed to go. Her consultation with Tim Drake was early in the morning and she had a lot of prepping to do.
“It was really nice meeting you Batman, but I’ll have to answer the rest of your questions another day.” Before he can respond she calls for Mirage and silently returns home. ~
Jason stared up at the ceiling as he laid back on the couch, waiting for his fitting with the designer Tim had obsessed over for ever. Tim and Bruce had already gone, while Dick was currently in there. Everyone had decided it was best for Damian to go last, so Jason was up next. The phone Lyca had given him was in his pocket, true to her word it was untraceable. Both Tim and Barbra had tried, when it was decided that magic had been used in the process of making it and they called it a night. Jason didn’t allow himself to feel hopeful that he could be cured, as it still felt to good to be true.
“Jason? It’s your turn.” Dick said as he popped his head into the library.
“Thanks, be right there.”
“Great, I’m going to go prep Damian. Try and bribe him to not insult or maim her.” And with that Dick disappeared.
Jason swung his legs over the edge of the couch and stood up. As he opened the door, the designer turned around and froze. She was painfully familiar, but the answer was harder to remember the harder he thought about it. She unfroze, blinking slightly. Immediately the answer came to him. An old friend, long thought dead was right in front of him.
He tried to speak, but he was in shock. Clearing his throat he attempted again.
“Marinette?” His voice cracked.
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syrelivesforptj · 2 years
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I know I’m a mlaal acc, but I need to talk about a little brother ally Jason and Dick thing I thought of
So, I was listening to Gilded Lily, and randomly a little scenario popped into my head! Imagine if Dick.. DIDNT leave the manor, and stayed with Bruce and Jason. (This definetly is already a real thing and I’m just spouting a whole entire fanfiction synopsis but I DONT CARE I WANNA WRITE IT)
Jason adores him, he loves going out and causing chaos with his cool new brother (and now idol), Nightwing. Ofcourse, Dick isn’t the biggest fan, I mean sure he loves him, but he’s like a little annoying dog. This causes Dick to ignore Jason from time to time, trying to catch a break. Then, he dies! Joker kills him and Dick is HEARTBROKEN, he doesn’t know how to move on at all but then one day Bruce comes home with a little raggedy boy, Tim. The Tim he met at the circus those years ago. The Tim in the photo with his parents.
Ofcourse, he uses him as a scapegoat for his problems. It’s extremely unhealthy but Tim is happy to have a big brother figure in his life (and those big shining eyes Dick receives when he does one of his tricks will always remind him of his little brother). They do everything Jason and Dick did, except Tim always has this weird gut feeling that this is all for show. And Nightwing try’s his best to give Tim the attention he didn’t give Jason.
Now, onto the good part!!! (I am lying it is a bit sad)
Okay, so Jason came back alive and stuff. (Let’s say this is pre 52, and he wasn’t resurrected by the Lazarus Pit, but by Superboy.) The first thing he does is go see the Manor, ofcourse. He sees Alfred and Bruce in the garden, no suit which was weird, and he’s just sitting there, smiling. This both makes Jason happy and a little annoyed, ‘why was he happy when I was dead? I know he should’ve moved on, I WANTED him to move on if something happened to me… but I was… his son...’ Then he goes to look for Nightwing, who was also in the garden, though he was in his suit, laughing at something…but he couldn’t tell what. Honestly, Jason was suprised he still lived there and had suspected him to have left after his death. That was when he saw the short black haired boy in a eerily familiar Red yellow and green suit.
Jason just stared as the two ran around the courtyard with sticks and wooden swords. He had no clue what to do, but his head was racing and his heart was beating, and he had a pounding headache. Bruce looked in his direction after Jason tried to choke back a sob and so he hid behind a tree, deciding to cancel his plans of saying hello to his family.
Somehow, Dick could feel his presence. He had always said it felt like he was still with them, but this time…
‘oh well. It was probably nothing.’
Okay that’s it ahhahaha
Comic: Task Force Z #8
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miizzllaneous7 · 2 years
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Father & Son Moment Idea
I HAD ANOTHER THOUGHT! I need sleep, it’s 2am- FFFFFUUUUUUC- WAIT, IT’S 2AM??? SHIEtT- UHHH Whatever.... I’m a lost cause.
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So what if Bruce, in his civvies, meets Red Hood while Jason is out in his Red Hood alias. They're at some sort of charity or organized event at the same time entirely by accident. They both pause, blink, and kinda have that moment reminiscent of the three Spidermen in the same place meme, but they try to be as nonchalant as possible immediately after.
Now Bruce is in his Brucie persona, and he's gotta publicly keep it up. He can already tell this will explode in media coverage later; he's a little stressed and exasperated at the thought of the aftermath of this entire situation. Almost headache-inducing, so Bruce shoves it away to deal with later, focusing more on the problem at hand.
Red Hood has been improving his reputation publically at this point, being more accepted by the police and the people of Gotham. This organized event is taking place in Crime Alley. It's rarer to see someone as insanely rich and famous as Bruce Wayne in Crime Alley; it's also where Red Hood is more well received. (Bruce Wayne, as Bruce Wayne, visits Crime Alley for charities or his own institutions he's set up, like orphanages, you can't change my mind. LOL) They're forced to interact a bit more due to the nature of the event or flat-out customs with these sorts of things. —I don't know, what event is this? No idea; I'll take suggestions to make a more solidified mental image. Okay?—, and it starts to loosen each other up, just the slightest bit as the interactions and proximity goes on unbeknownst to them.
To Jason, it's eerie. In private and especially as Batman, Bruce has never been the same since he came back from the dead, probably even since his death. The grief and subsequent mourning changes a person in a lasting way. He's colder, more distant, less of a parental figure he'd been with him and Dick. Tim, maybe Damian depending on the timeline you want to put this mentally, never got to experience the softness and love Bruce had been capable of. He smiles, talks and even laughs differently. A whiff of what it once was behind closed doors. This Bruce is a ghost of the man he once was, and he'll never be the same. It causes an ache in Jason's chest at the thought because this man is his father, but also, he's decidedly not. It's a part of the source of his frustrations with him.
Sometimes, there are moments that the man he'd been formerly, his father, seeps through. It's gone as quick as it comes.
So it's eerie, seeing Bruce like this. In his Brucie persona. He may not be as close to the Bruce that had once been his Dad, but coupled with the trace of a person Jason so dearly loved— Jason continues to love—. With whom he's been slowly becoming acquainted with again after his return from death, with the haze from Lazarus Pit lifting as time goes on, Brucie, the 'mask' of Bruce Wayne, is probably the closest Jason has ever gotten to what he remembers of his Dad. The warmer man he saw as his parental figure in the best days of his life.
So seeing Bruce in this 'Brucie' mask is so heart-wrenching because even then, he can see through the cracks more intimately than anyone in the room, possibly good. The fraudulent and artificial act can so closely resemble his Dad at times; it's like he's been thrown five years in the past, and he's still that young boy who never died.
So they go on, for appearance's sake.
Brucie has moments of a more genuine Bruce seeping through, Indulging in it as smoothly as he can; whether he does it consciously or not, I don't know, up to interpretation. (I lack decision-making skills :) Life's great! Haha... Ha...) Especially given their tenacious relationship thus far, while slowly improving, it is still a process, a slow one at that. They haven't gotten there 100%. Those moments, however, are probably what Jason sees as remnants of how he remembers his own Dad. This is a small, gentle misunderstanding that hopefully comes across in this mental image. (They both see images of their old selves in one another, and it's dissociating, but they're getting there to reconcile their old and new selves.)
So then, there's a moment as Brucie, and Red Hood start to get along better and more smoothly, finding their own script and rhythm with the ruse—half ruse they've created. Brucie ruffles Red Hood's hair while chuckling a more hardy laugh that's so utterly reminiscent of the man Jason loved as his Dad; he gets lost in that moment.
Now, they're still in public, so as Jason starts to get quite emotional over this, Bruce's laughs trail off as he looks at Jason in surprise, hand still in Jason's hair as he'd been ruffling it, with Jason in a moment of weakness leans into it.
Jason's eyes get wet before he breaks from his stupor as he remembers he's in public, lost in the moment, paralleling their father-son relationship as a child. Jason closes his eyes, thinking, "Shit, this is gonna fuck up my street cred, isn't it?…" and tries to cooly brush it off and go back to what he'd been doing.
Bruce is just flat-out surprised as he realizes perhaps, with time and effort, he may be able to save more of his relationship with Jason than he'd initially thought. So he just continues to low-key Dad him for the rest of the event, taking advantage of the situation as a step forward.
Blah blah blah, I think this would be adorable. Wish I had writing skills, I’d make a one shot or something for it...
Later on, possible headlines the media could make would be "Bruce Wayne fathering the Red Hood??" Or "Batman has some competition in the serial adopting department."
A lot of the public's conspiracies and understanding of the Batfamily is mostly of not all just that, conspiracies; this feeds into the theories or, more popularly, blows up new and different theories, completely throwing out old ones- Secret identities safe, for now. Looool
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themaribatpit · 3 years
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Saturday Challenge: Hurt Without Comfort
Written by: The Maribat Pit This wasn’t how it was supposed to be, they should have done it his way…
Marinette was fighting for her life, while Master Fu tended to her wounds.  All her friends could do was wait, as they gathered around the shop he used as a front.  Jason was absolutely furious with himself for not acting sooner, the person who she tried to save had shot her just before she could capture whatever was controlling him.  Jason shot the akuma and watched as it shattered into several little pieces, he hoped Hawk Moth felt that gunshot too.  Now Jason was trapped in a room with her friends Adrien, Alya, and Nino.  Their little fairy friends were also very quiet, hovering very close to whoever possessed the magic jewelry that contained their power.   
Of course, this wasn’t Gotham City, Marinette had reminded him time and time again.  The people she was up against were being controlled by Hawk Moth or Mayura, whatever damage they caused could be fixed with a wave of her lucky charm.  Oh, how he wanted to believe that was true right now.  Tikki phased through the door and you could tell just by looking at her that Master Fu was still in the process of trying to heal her. 
Moments later, Chloe walked in and the atmosphere began to feel stifling with tension.  She looked around the room at all the people anxiously waiting for news.  “What happened? Where is she?” she snapped, Adrien stepped forward to try and answer her question when her eyes fell on Jason. “You, she trusted you, she thought you were some kind of hero. She thought you were her ‘Red Knight’, but I know exactly what you are” Jason stood up, ready to walk out of the room. He wasn’t going to take this from a spoiled little rich girl.  She threw a small file onto the nearby table.  Jason glanced at it, articles and photos of the Red Hood and his dealings.  He’d almost be impressed that she had access to some of this information, probably the perks of being a mayor’s daughter. 
“So, let me get this straight Miss Bourgeois” Jason growled, “you found information that, let’s be honest, isn’t news to anyone who’s actually met me. I was one of Gotham’s most feared crime lords, still probably am. It probably doesn’t begin to cover what I do to people who break my rules”.
Chloe crossed her arms, “so you won’t even try and deny it?”
“Trust me when I say even Marinette knows a lot more than what’s in those files,” he told her.  “She knows that I killed people who have done things you can’t begin to imagine, some of whom taught me what I know”, he took a couple of steps towards her. “Much like you and your little friends here, I’ve been doing this since I was 13” he explained, “I wasn’t up against magic mind control victims, I was up against people who delight in making people suffer”.
Alya put an arm out in front of Jason, while Adrien tried to hold Chloe by the shoulders, keeping the two of them apart.  “Look everyone, let’s all just calm down and wait til Marinette wakes up” Nino said, trying his best to diffuse the situation. 
“The only reason she’s in there is because she put her trust in someone like you” Chloe sneered, “what makes you so sure she’s going to be fine?”
“Honestly, I don’t know” Jason said in a frighteningly low voice,  Alya looked up and saw that his face didn’t change much.  The stoic glare made it very difficult to tell exactly what he was thinking.   “Your friend is at death’s door, and that’s a dumb question to ask someone who’s been in and out through it,” there was a long silence as the meaning of his words sank in.  Tikki and Plagg exchanged knowing glances, their magic was the very thing that gave birth to the Lazarus pits.  “So sorry if you are just about the last thing I’m afraid of,” he narrowed his eyes at her as he said this.  Jason gently lowered Alya’s arm and brushed past Chloe as he walked away.  He could just about hear what Alya was saying as he left.
“Chloe listen, we’re all worried for Marinette” Alya told her, “but what happened wasn’t Jason’s fault. She knew all that, but chose to see the good in him, just like she chose to see the good in you.”
When he stepped outside, he noticed that the rain was pouring heavily.  Jason sighed, it was almost like he was cursed, bringing Gotham’s atmosphere into this colourful little city.  Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Tikki hovering just beside him.  He sighed and opened one of the lapels in his leather jacket, letting Tikki nestle herself inside before picking a direction and walking away. 
He found the nearest bar and sat down, looking around the quiet room.  Most of the people inside were in their own little worlds, barely paying any attention to anyone else outside of their own table.  Jason took off his jacket and Tikki slowly floated out of the inside pocket, before slumping down behind the beer bottle.  If she wanted him to tell her that Marinette would be alright, he couldn’t be certain, no matter how much he wished it was true.  Jason watched the world go by in that tiny little bar, neither of them said a word to one another.  As far as anyone else was concerned, Jason was sitting there by himself, alone.  He had half a mind to take matters into his own hands and go track down Hawk Moth and Mayura himself.  They were the ones responsible, they didn’t care who got hurt in the carnage that they created.  The only problem was it wasn’t his fight, and that was the very reason that he played by Marinette’s rules in the first place.  She explained that if she could just take back the Miraculous, they would be powerless, and that was a win in her book.  The Kwami would be returned to the Miracle box, and everyone could just get on with their lives.  By the time he was on his second bottle, he looked down at Tikki, her antenna drooping with sadness.  Jason sighed “go back and check on her”, Tikki looked up with a confused look on her face.  “If she wakes up and you’re not there, she’s gonna feel pretty sad.” he explained.  Tikki hovered towards the window before turning towards him, “she’ll be sad if you’re not there as well” she told him. “She’ll know where to find me, right now,” he took one last gulp of beer, “right now I just need to think.” he said.  Tikki hesitated before vanishing through the window in a puff of pink bubbles, leaving Jason alone with his thoughts and some more alcohol.  Jason stared at the yellow glow of the lights hanging from the ceiling, thinking about just how much he had been through.  @jasonette-july-event
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multifandomgirl-us · 4 years
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First - Jason Todd
AU where you have a clock counting your time back till you die.
It made no sense. He was supposed to have more time. His clock said he had another 60 years or so. How is that to make sense when you are burying him at this moment? When the quiet sobs and cries of all who knew him can be heard in your surroundings. His death made no sense to you at all. It gave you no time to prepare like others had. At least everyone else that had passed away in your life followed their clocks, but not Jason. He always did have to be the first to do things you guessed. The first to be your friend, the first to try and steal Batman’s tires, the first person to take care of you, the first boy you loved, the first male you knew you could trust, and now the first person known to the modern world to defy their clock. 
As his casket was slowly lowered into the ground, your sobs grew stronger and Bruce’s grip on your shoulder tightened. His own way of showing his grief you guessed. As dirt was added on Jason’s grave, you watched with your blurry eyesight. A blur… that was a great way to describe the events that occurred the rest of the day. A day filled with almost as much sorrow as the day you found out Jason had passed. 
Jason wasn’t supposed to be out at this time. He was supposed to be helping you train. A sort of punishment instilled upon him by Bruce for disobeying Bruce’s orders. But as you went down to the cave to meet him to train, he was leaving on his bike. Heading to god knows where and only a note left for you to read. 
‘Left to help Bruce, we’ll train later’
You were hoping Jason wouldn’t lie to you but you had a feeling that he wasn’t telling the truth. So, you hopped onto the comms and paged over to Bruce to ask him.
“Did you call Jason out to patrol with you? I thought he was grounded,” you questioned.
“He is grounded! Go get Alfred, and tell him to scan for Jason’s location,” Bruce answered, confirming your suspicions.
“On it Bruce!”
You rushed up and into the kitchen, where you thought you would find Alfred but no luck. Your little legs could not go very fast but you used your top speed in order to find the self-proclaimed butler. As your legs carried you passed Jason’s room, you stopped, excited and relieved that you had finally found Alfred.
“Alfred! Bruce needs you to scan for Jason’s location, Jason snuck out!” The man followed you down to the cave and immediately went to look for your best friend. As soon as Jason’s location was pinged, he sent the coordinates to Bruce. You were just hoping that nothing had happened to Jason. He was reckless and jumped into situations without ever assessing the area. You knew one day it would get him hurt or worse yet killed and unfortunately for you and everyone else, today was that day. All you remember is Bruce getting to the warehouse, a large explosion, and you crumpling to the ground, tears clouding your vision. 
Apparently crying was all that you could do anymore, you felt helpless, useless even. The next few days after the funeral Bruce was gone. Either in the cave or out on patrol, hunting Joker down. You remember being on call when he finally found the clown prince. You finally had hope that Jason could be avenged. That he could be at peace, knowing his killer was no longer able to hurt anyone, but to your dismay, Joker remained alive. Bruce simply put him in Arkham, like that has done any good. You were angry, furious even at the man you looked at as a father. His only response being “We don’t break code.” 
You knew getting angry wouldn’t do anything so you trained. Trained until you could take care of the problem yourself. Unlike Jason though, you were better at hiding your emotions. You followed Bruce’s orders, let him boss you around and make you the best you could be. Unknown to him was your plan to get rid of the Joker. You never wanted to kill anyone but for Jason you could make this one exception. The monster had taken your person away. Your plan was fool proof, until Bruce caught on. Which landed you where you were now.
His hand gently caressed your face as you sat in the gardens of the manor, wiping away the tears that fell down your face. You sniffled as you looked into his eyes. These tears were different from those you had been shedding. These were tears of joy, joy over you waking up from the nightmare of a world in which he was no longer with you. You hear him ask ‘What’s wrong?’ but as you try to answer, nothing comes out of your mouth. You try again and still nothing comes out. Slowly, his hand disappears from your face and he is slipping away from you once more. You try to scream but again, nothing can be heard. Your mouth can be seen making the movements of you trying to call out Jason’s name over and over, but once again...silence”
You gasped awake trying to scream once more but then you realize you are no longer in the garden. You were in your cell at Arkham, put there by a man who you thought would get why you were trying to go against the code. The code that got your best friend killed. The code that he refused to break even though it cost him a child, a partner, your best friend. 
You realized it was just a dream, a wonderful dream that brought you out of your current nightmare. As you let your heart calm itself, you laid facing the ceiling, and wished that you could go back into the dream world. Maybe you could act crazy enough so the guards would sedate you and you can go back there. As you contemplated how you were going to slip back into your dream state, grunts and gun fire interrupted you. The shouts of your fellow inmates soon took over though, screaming at whoever it was to get them out. You sat up, curious to see just who it was that caused such a disturbance and ruined you going back into your dream land. Although the shouts of your neighbors were loud, you could still pick out a pair of boots, stomping their way towards your cell. Two shots went off at what you were assuming was the lock to your cell from how close it sounded. You crept toward the door just wondering why this person was so interested in breaking you out and just who it was. The door swung open revealing a tall muscular figure with a red helmet on and a clock reading 00:00:00:00. 
“Who are you?” you yelled at the strange figure. They simply stepped toward you with a syringe while you backed away from them. All of a sudden, they lunged at you, trying to inject whatever it was into your system. You fought back and forth which ended with you pinned against the wall, arm across your throat and needle in your neck. The plunger was pushed down and soon the dark cell which contained you turned completely black. 
“Jason! Where are you?” your little voice echoed in the damp.
“Shhh! Get over here!” Jason whisper-yelled to you. As you turned the corner, a sleek black vehicle you recognized to be the batmobile sat in the ally. 
“Jason are you crazy! You are seriously stealing the tires off of the batmobile?”
“Yeah, imagine what these will go for! I’m sure the guy can afford it anyways.”
“Ahem.” The sound of the deep voiced vigilante was heard behind you and your immediate thought was “Oh, shit!” You quickly turned around, ready to do what you could in order to give Jason time to run even though that would be pointless. Only this time when you turned around, it wasn’t the outline of Batman with street lights illuminating his background, it was just darkness. Darkness surrounded you and suddenly there was nothing below your feet. You fell through a black void. No destination in sight or anything to grab onto so you could slow down your fall, just darkness. You tried to scream, but like with most of your dreams, it was useless. Nothing came out and…
“Ugh,” a small grunt left your lips as you felt the bed that you just got tossed on bounce with your weight. The impact had woken you out of your daze only for you to realize that both your hands and feet were bound and the person who had taken you out of your cell was going through a bag that was sitting on a table about 5 feet away from the bed. 
“Morning,” you barely heard come from the figure in your daze.
“Who are you and what do you want?” you yelled at the Kevlar covered man.
“Oh princess, you don’t get to know that quite yet. You are just gonna have to be patient,” his deep voice resonated through your ears as he headed for the door. The door clicked close and the deadbolt was set. After he left, you worked on getting out of your constraints. The knots were done well, so well you almost gave up. But you didn’t know what this creep wanted and you did not want to find out. 
You had no clue as to when the man was going to reappear but you wanted to be ready in case he came back early. You quickly went for the knife sitting on the table but as you picked it up, you froze. Underneath the knife was a picture of you and Jason. 'Why would a stranger have this?' You asked yourself. Now you were curious and knew the only way to get answers was to dig around, so that's what you did. You opened every drawer and sorted through all the cabinets and when you got to one that was locked, you picked the lock to find not only more pictures of you and Jason, but also of the manor, Bruce, and Alfred. With all that, was your criminal record, the most recent being attempted murder. You should be sorry but the clown had it coming and you still seek revenge for what happened.
"You always were a snoop," his deep voice startled you out of whatever was going on in your mind. 
"So you know me, you know who the Batman is...who are you?" Maybe it was the drugs he had given you before but the only explanation should be impossible.
"I think you know princess."
"No, it's impossible. How can…"
"Thank Ra's. He put me in the lazarus pit."
"Jason...I" at this point you were almost in tears. You hesitantly reached up, eager to see his face. He bent his head down in order to help you out and to signify he was okay with revealing himself to you. As you brought the helmet down off his face, he brought his head up and his eyes met yours. As soon as those green orbs looked into your own, you launched at him with arms open to give him a hug. You had finally gotten your best friend back.
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societysonlooker · 4 years
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So. In Death In The Family a possible scene is Jason fighting the joker while the gcpd closes in on them, and when joker is finally cornered, Jason reveals who he is, and the FIRST thing out of Jokers mouth is "One Bad Day", which, if you've been around here long enough, or just watched the killing joke, is this Jokers whole philosophy. He honestly believes one bad day us enough to drive anyone to his level of insanity. Now, while this scene makes it look like that WAS true for Jason (if he kills the joker, not so much if he spares him), I'd like to counter that.
Because in this scene, Jason is the red hood. Not hush, and not a Jason that lived while batman died. No, this is [mostly] honest to canon Red Hood Jason. And the thing about red hood, is that it wasn't even what joker did to him that pushed him over the edge. Was it the catalyst? Yes. But what made him finally commit to flipping his morals and be the antihero/antagonust we all know and love was the combination of his dip in the Lazarus pit, and the manipulation by the Al'ghuls he was subjected to.
It's canon that the Lazarus pits make you angry, fucj with your ability to think, and can make you very impulsive. When Jason came out of the pit, 16 and with his last memories being of crawling out of his own grave, the first thing that happened to him was Talia caring for him, and feeding him vitriol abiut batman the whole time. How he didn't go after joker, didn't avenge Jason, replaced him and dragged another child into his war (if you know anything about tim, you know this last one... isn't really true).
She feeds into Jason's pre-death ideas that some crime can't be caged, just killed, and feeds him the al'ghul philosophy of ruling by fear. Batman follows his own moral code for human, emotional, moral reasons. But Talia feeds Jason anger and practicality, and post-pit Jason obviously believes her because everything she said makes sense, and the "proof" she shows him is cultivated to feed her narrative. Of course she never tells him that batman went damn near feral after Jay died, of course she didn't tell him that he didn't want to take tim on as robin (she might not have even known that one, really) she wanted to shape Jason into something that would antagonize and hurt Bruce, and she did that.
In this scene, Jason doesn't even properly remember everything he did when he was first in Gotham, he's repressed most of it, it was A) horrifying B) traumatizing and C) still pretty lazarus-affected.
In this scene, Joker says "One bad day", and honestky believes he caused all this. That Jason's death and revival and the trauma THAT caused is what made Jason do this. The problem is this isn't true. If Jason had come back and been surrounded by family and people who hinestky wanted what's best for him, he would have been fine. In fact we SEE him be fine!
Thus movie has a version where Bruce dies in that warehouse instead of Jason, and when that happens, we see that Jason is honest to god on the path to recovery before he goes into that diner and meets joker in plainclothes. AND!!! If je escapes the cops immediately after that, yes, he becomes red robin and goes on a villian killing spree, but stops after the events with two face. Be it from shame and dropping the gig entirely, or from Tim showing faith in his ability to do the right thing and be the good, righteous person batman wanted him to be.
(If he doesn't escape the cops immediately, then he goes to prison, and then that's basically just a headstart, minus batmans existence, to a canon incident where he kills like 200 prisoners after getting convicted. In which, he eventually gets out (I think Nightwing helps him escape in exchange for help with something involving Jay's ex-partner? I'm unsure), and doesn't really kill on that scale ever again. I dont remember if this is prior to or after battle for the cowl, but I DO know that N52 happened shortly after and then he formed the outlaws. What is and is not canon between then and now is... up for debate, to say the least. Thing is though, by that point, he was trying to at least be amicable with his siblings, if not with B, amd he was toning down the fucked-up-ness of his methods. Still killing, still ruling by fear but like, not decapitation gang lieutenants in the street for fucks sake. Lazarus shit is begining to stop, and we see him finally begin to mature past what happened to him and who he was manipulated to be. The n52 happened and we started all the fuck over. But. Ya know. We're getting back there.)
Because of these paths we know for a FACT that it's not just the warehouse that drives Jason mad, and while crawling out of his own grave had to be fucjing terrifying, that's not really a "gonna kill all criminals" trauma that a "welp. Guess who's never sleeping in a dark room or putting themself in a small space ever again" type pf trauma. Point is, we KNOW that it's the events with Talia that make Jason snap (a cold, calculating kinda snap, but Snap he does).
And because of the Hush timeline, while its his hatred of joker that pushes him, it's also his own pride. He STILL thinks Bruce failed him. Still wants revenge on the joker, and its his PREVIOUS problems within the batfam that cause his discontent and wounded pride to fester. It's not so much what joker did, as it is what batman WONT do. Batman WONT kill criminals, he won't always gives them the "punushment" Jason thinks he deserves, and frankly, its not beyond ken to say that a Jason who grows up without the warehouse incident still grows up to have "looser" morals than batman.
Some therapy to address his childhood trauma might also bring forth a much, much more prevalent, and adult hatred of the kinds of monsters that made his childhood hell. Once he's grown, once he's far enough past it to truly comprehend and understand what he lived through, when he sees kids passing on the street, or babysitting his niece and nephew, and imagines someone hurting them or abandoning them, it would very likely make him angry all over again. A Jason who grows up and heals might also be a Jason that's angrier at the injustice in the world in general, that will see a kid starving on the street or getting mugged and snaps, killing the person doing the hurting and doing everything he can to make sure the kid is alright.
In fact, his teen years might already be evidence of that. There was an incident back in the 80's involving Jason and a domestic abuser, they were fighting, and the guy fell off a high rise balcony, and Jason made no move to save him. To this day, we don't know if the guy actually fell, or if Jason pushed him off. And frankly, it doesn't matter, because the point is that Jason didn't give a fuck the man was dead, even if it was kinda his fault (chasing the man to and fighting on the balcony).
While Bruce, quite vocally, believes ALL life is precious, even the lives of evil individuals, Jason decidedly doesn't, and even as early as thirteen or fourteen years old. Hes not shaken up about it the way Bruce would've been, and isn't even regretful of it like dick would have been (as robin or as nightwing, ie, the blockbuster incident). It happened, he believed the man got what he was due, and he moved on.
All of the information we have on Jason, both comics, movies, and alternative futures (death in the fam) show us that it's not Jason's "One Bad Day" with joker that leads him down that path, it's a series of underlying problems, beliefs, and situational unlucky bullshit that leads him down that path. In two out of three universes, he is clearly and obviously either A) redeemed or B) trying to be redeemed. And in hush, there's no guarantee that he actually follows through with raising damian to hate Bruce, its his initial goal, yeah, but there is every possibility that he mellows out with time, and just raises Dami as /slightly/ more vicious than he canonically is.
(And EVEN THEN! B would still like right after dames gets to gotham, dick still takes him in, and sunflower smile boi Dick Grayson is actually just, an amazing fucking dad to this boy and helps him heal. Like seriously, what kind of hate is Jay gonna spew abt nightwjng? That he's the golden boy? Yeah. Ok. But he also wants nothing to do with Bruce's rich person Wayne life so Damian doesn't really have a reason to hate him. And we have NO idea what happens with Tim drake in that universe so who tf knows what happens with that. Maybe he gets mad good with computer and apprentices under oracle when she find him, who knows? The WORST case scenario here is that Damian sees dick as a failure, and has his worldview changed as dick raises him. And sure, Jason could try to get Damian back, but there's no guarantee he could. Between Talia, the league, Dick, Alfred with his shotgun, and Damian being home-schooled, there's kot a great chance of Jason actually getting him back unless Damian actively tries to run away. Which. He didn't. He believes Batman is his birthright, he's not going anywhere).
The literal WORST case scenario (other than dying again) for Jason is joining the league of assasins, and that's really not like, THAT horrible. (If they were led by anyone other than Ra'as and stopped acting like an international court of owls, they might actually be ALLIES with the batfam. Just some food for thought).
Side-note, Jason becoming hush was also only indirectly caused by Jokers torture. We KNOW he heals fine from that. We know that post-death it's the manipulation that does him in, but in hush, do to the damage caused by the explosion, he has to lay in bed, barely even capable of speech, for months. Imagine being more angry then you've ever been in your life, and having absolutely no way to express that. Half the bones in your body are shattered, your entire body is bandaged, suspended, and hoked uo to gid knows how many different machines, and you can hardly even talk, because between the smoke inhalation, fractured skull, and facial burns that are gonna leave you permanently disfigured, moving your mouth and producing sound is torturous. Amd throughout that whole time, you're stewing in so much rage and betrayal and hurt that you could put your hand through every window in that manor and still not feel better.
Cause I've imagined that, and I'm pretty sure it would drive me crazy too.
It wasn't one bad day, it was 3 torturous months after a few months of continued and really, really bad familial strife. And yeah, I completely understand going a little homicidal after that. If my fam was a little worse and I was a little more crazy and a little less sad I probabky would too.
Hush timeline aside, Jason is the kind of person that sees evil and injustice and gets angry about it. Sure, batmans methods work for some, for criminals that can actually be reformed, but some people only commit crime for economic reasons, some people do it cause (in gotham) its easy, and some do it cause they're evil. We see in a few different things that mature, Lazarus-effect-free Jason only kills the last kind, and honestly tries to help the first. As for the second, batman's method DOES actually work on them. Batman is scared of how easy killing would be, but Jason, a few years down the line, kills to protect innocents. Not to "solve crime".
It's not "One Bad Day" that makes Jason insane in the 2, arguably temporarily 5 outta 6, timelines he is,, nor is it One Bad Day that makes him a killer in ANY timeline. Its his worldview, moral philosophies, and complicated, traumatic past that defined him as robin, and continue to define him into adulthood. The incident at the warehouse was just one domino in a line that started with Jason birth to a mother who didn't care and an abusive father, and ended with him as the red hood. The ONLY DC timeljne where Jason doesn't end up as some kind of antihero is the one where batman never picked him up off the streets, and he went to the clergy instead. This in mind, jts even arguable that kts BATMANS teachings that inevitably make Jason into the man he becomes. EVERYTHING in a person's life is situational,.and psychology is a lot more comolicated than people like to believe.
Without the warehouse, maybe Jason never grows up to kill, maybe he follows in dick's footsteps, capable and somewhat willing to kill but unwilling due to his morals. Or maybe he's more like tim, able and willing to kill, but deciding not to for batmans sake. Or maybe he actually grows sick at the idea of killing over time, the way dick did (unlikely) or maybe, like in the red robin timeline, he kills for a while after a catalyst incident, then pulls a "Ex-League Kid" like cass and dami and stops, ashamed or even horrified at his past actions and unwilling to return to those ways.
Maybe he becomes the red hood anyway, because he never quite agreed with batmans "no killing EVER" rule; because joker needed to be stopped. Or black mask. Or hush. Or fuck, maybe he sees what blockbuster is doing to his brother in bludhaven and decides to step in, even without his family ever knowing it was him. Maybe he sees a far too young kid getting beaten or kidnapped on the street and steps in the way he'd wished for someone to when that kid had been him.
Maybe he does something completely different, maybe even moves on with his life when he goes to college.
While there's no way of knowing for sure, all of these are plausible speculations because of who he was as robin. Not because of a catalyst incident, not because of One Bad Day, as Joker puts it but because Jason Todd is a complex individual in an altogether hopeful but shitty situation who needs time to learn and grow and mature into who he is going to become, and a bunch of people attempting to brutally steal that right and independence from him before he's even 16 is fucking horrible for his mental health.
I think an unfortunate amount of people see Jason as proof of Jokers One Bad Day philosophy, and I think they see him as proof, while character like batman and Gordon, who are arguably literary paragons, as exceptions. The problem is, they're not exceptions. They're the rule. And while the killing joke is the most obvious in-universe example of it, just about every Joker movie including the batkids is, more subtly, also proof, ieJason is a complex individual, even after weeks of torture Tim killed Joker instead of Bruce, then retired from vigilantism to heal. Even the comics Dick ALSO kills Joker on his "Bad Day", but still heals and moves on after the fact.
Not to mention, gotham blows up on the weekly, do you KNOW how many citizens have One Bad Day every goddamned week? If Jokers philosophy was true, we'd see gotham completely overrun and inundated with criminally insane villians and mobsters. But that's not the case. Yes, gotham has far more crime then most, but thats canonically a socioeconomic and corruption problem. Beyond that, yes, far more of their rogues are criminally insane than in say, central city, but other than Joker, most of these rogues have long, complicated, traumatic reasons why they're like that.
No one else excuses their actions with "one bad day". It's JUST the joker, and even then, it's just ONE version of the Joker. Mobster Joker is just a sadist, and harmless hat tricks Joker (silver age) is just... The ridler but a clown instead, and certainly not as clever (sorry not sorry. Clever is different from smart Bite Me).
(Also... this is me refusing to accept Three Jokers answer that silver age Joker killed Jason. Firstly, his death didn't happen in the silver age. Secondly, luring a boy to a warehouse just to beat him to the brink of death, then let him think escape was possible before blowing him up isn't silver age jokers MO. Sikver Joker loved the spectacle, the ridiculous. He might tell a joke, but it was almost never a joke that would ever be funny (and like, killing jokes end joke was actually kinda hillarious. I'd laugh if it wasn't Joker who told it) it was something dumb that would make the rest of the world mildly uncomfortable while he laughed at it, well, like a clown. The actions of the Joker Joker killed Jason are very, very much in line with bronze age Joker, who im gonna call the manipulater. While it's kinda in line with mobster joker, this isn't done just to hurt Jason physically, and it's not just to scare him, it's to mess him up emotionally. Joker fucks with Jason's psyche in that warehouse, his uses his birth mom to get to him, taunts him, makes a show out of thinking the whole thing is hillarious, and compares Jay to dick the whole time. He's not just hurting Jason for the sake of hurting him, he's doing this to scar the kid emotionally. He wants it to be so that even if Jason survives, he's mentally scared for the rest of his life. THAT is bronze Era Joker in my book. Plus, silver jokers idea of spectacle is in the hurting, in the trap, the plan, while bronze Joker ALSO likes that, he's also A-okay with the whole of the spectacle just being a big ol boom. Silver Joker would have his head for that kinda lackluster performance)
Hell, do you know how many serial killers and suoervillians we'd have in the REAL world of jokers philosophy was correct? I'm from a family of social workers and let me tell you: far, FAR more than even batman could deal with. Humans have quite the capacity for cruelty when they so desire, and the world is kinda a shit place to a lot of people. But instead of being overrun by prohibition style mobs and tacky OR terrifying supervilkians, theres just a lot of us highly traumatized individuals out here constantly seeking to make this world better. We can't change what happened to us but we can damned well try and make sure it doesn't happen to anyone else, ever again.
Sure, we don't have any masked vigilantes running around (for the most part), but there's still heroes in the real world. Crash victims who go on to be doctors. People who grew up in foster care and struggled, and now that they're settled will foster to help give the next generation a better chance. Ex-addicts becoming social workers. Domestic abuse victims volunteering to help victims escape. Delressed kids becoming therapists. Any kind of civil servant, first responder, or reform worker who does what they do to help others, all of them are living proof that Joker's idea of One Bad Day is utter Bullshit.
The movies do their job and point this out, the comics... mostly show this. The DCAU just about always shows this head on. But way, WAY too many people missed the point for me to feel comfortable, and besides that I enjoy literary analysis.
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jasontoddiefor · 4 years
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Summary: Jason Todd was raised on the streets, in Gotham’s filth, but the blood that was running through his veins was everything but. Jason was the last of a line of gruesome, death stained mages, necromancers who dealt in souls and flickering images of immortality. Jason was a fifteen-year-old boy who crawled out of his grave, weeks after he died, reanimated by powers he couldn’t understand or control, and struggled to feel alive even when his father was holding onto him.
AN: I finally get to post my @batfam-big-bang fanfic! I My lovely beta readers for this wonderful project were @nycis and @queerbutstillhere while my amazing artists were @darkmagyk and @paperedking and @zannakai. Check out their stunning pieces!!!
Read on AO3
I had a night I had a day I did one million stupid things I said one billion foolish things I'm not okay
If there are two emotions Jason knows well, they are  fear and anger. Both had accompanied him since his earliest childhood memories. His father’s shouting had been a constant source of anger and fear. His loud voice had forced Jason to hide beneath the table, his bed, the closet, all spaces he had falsely assumed would be too small for his father to reach. With bated breath he had waited for the screeching to stop until only his mother’s soft sobs had echoed through the rooms. Those too had angered Jason. He didn’t know whether it was on her behalf, because he had hated his father so much for causing her any pain, or because that anger had been for himself, the poor child whose mother wasn’t strong enough to leave her piece of shit husband.
On the streets, anger had kept him warm at night and fear had ensured he stayed alive. He had marveled at the shiny tires of the Batmobile, but even then, deep down, he had been so incredibly angry. He was going hungry while another drove a car like that. He had ignored his fear then and stolen the tires regardless.
It had been the best decision of his life.
So now, when once again  he was stuck between fear and anger, he chose to dismiss his fear and lash out instead.
“You can’t be serious!” Jason hissed, throwing up his arms.
Rage boiled beneath his skin like an active volcano. It infected his voice, his stance. He rose to his full height, making him the tallest in the room, but none of his siblings even blinked at it. They were too used to such simpleminded intimidation tactics, employed similar ones in front of villains who thought they could get the better of them.
“This is the right way,” Dick said, his voice strained with finality, a kind of authority he had no right to evoke.
He was not their leader, and he sure as hell was not their father. Dick barely understood what Jason was capable of and when he did, was too scared of it. The others didn’t see it, but Jason knew a coward when he saw one. Dick always tip-toed around Jason’s room like he expected the undead to crawl right out of it and drag him into a bloody casket. Beyond that, he also always took the patrol routes far away from Jason’s apartment complex and city district. Jason didn’t mind, he preferred it when the others kept their noses out of the Narrows and Crime Alley. His people didn’t particularly enjoy it either when the other bats and birds came around to play there as they tended to mess with the wards and ask uncomfortable questions. Jason understood too well how unsettling his presence could be and therefore knew very well that Dick had no room to make such decisions or judge Jason for them.
“The right way,” Jason repeated. “Do you even hear yourself? If everything was right, Bruce would still be here!”
Tim and Steph both winced when Jason said his name and even Dick’s face fell. They all didn’t understand it. Death was so final to them instead of just another state of being, one that Jason could reverse.
“I can bring him back,” Jason continued, desperation seeping into his voice. “Everything will be alright again. It’s all in these books. I just need your help.”
Why couldn’t his siblings just understand that he would fix it and then everything would go back to being the way it was before Darkseid had torn their lives to shreds. The Cave had become messy since Bruce’s death. It had been barely a month ago but it already showed despite best efforts. Jason had dragged all his books here to study and take notes, the constant hum of the technology as much a motivational hymn as it was a lullaby. His notes now were spread out all across the table, proudly displaying the work Dick was disregarding so very easily.
Dick only stubbornly shook his head. “No, Bruce wouldn’t want that.”
This wasn’t about what Bruce wanted, he was dead. This was simply about deciding how they were going to fix it.
“You don’t know that,” Jason countered. “It’s not like he wrote it in his will.”
Dick let out a low breath and dragged his hands through his hair as if Jason were causing him a headache. They had attended the reading of the will just hours before. Alfred had made sure they had all dressed up in proper suits the way they had for the closed casket funeral because there hadn’t been a body to recover. It would make it all more difficult to bring Bruce back without his original body to tie his soul too, but Jason was confident that he would be able to pull it off. Jason had only listened half-heartedly to the reading of the will. He knew its contents by heart, they all did. Every hero had a will set up and about ten proxies who knew every word and could recite it in case their death had been unnatural.
Alfred had been given custody over Damian while Tim had been emancipated. The Wayne fortune had been split five ways between Dick, Jason, Tim, Cass, and Damian while Steph and Barbara both got a huge stipend. It was all for nothing, Bruce would be back. Cass knew it as well, or so Jason hoped. She hadn’t even bothered to show for the funeral but had left the city the night before. Jason wished she had stayed, she would support him.
Instead, Jason had to make everyone else listen to him.
Tim was still straight up in denial and didn’t believe that Bruce was dead. His parents had died around the same time, just two years earlier. Of course, he wouldn’t be able to handle it and escape into his delusions instead. Steph, for all that she was a part of the team and family, Jason’s closest confidant out of all of them, had chosen to stay neutral while Dick protested vehemently.
Damian, meanwhile, just thought that Jason wouldn’t be able to pull it off, but that could be blamed on his superiority complex. While the kid, a perfect mix of Talia and Bruce, could imitate Bruce’s accent and body language as well as he wanted to, he still reeked of al Ghul arrogance and the Lazarus pit’s side effects. It was a foul stench, poisonous, and foreign to this world. It had hurt Bruce when Jason had told him what exactly was keeping Damian’s heart beating, but there was nothing that could be done about it. It wasn’t like anybody else besides Jason actually noticed.
“Had he wanted to, we would know,” Dick said.
“But-“
“Jason, stop.” Dick’s order, his tone couldn’t be mistaken for anything but a bark, was harsh. “Bruce is dead and he will stay dead. You will not experiment on his soul just because you think you can bring him back.”
“I don’t think so, I know so,” Jason argued. “You’re just incapable of trusting me! You still think I’m a foolish kid who is just playing around with powers he doesn’t understand!”
His voice rose with every shouted word. It had always been like this. Dick thinking that Jason was crossing too many lines, wasn’t good enough to be Robin or anything. Hell, he had accepted Tim more readily as Robin than he ever had Jason.
“Jason-“ Tim tried to speak up, but was harshly cut off by Dick.
Trust big brother to always know best.
“Because you are!” Dick shouted back. It hurt, cut into flesh like sharp knives, but at the same time it was liberating. Finally, Dick was actually speaking his mind. Honesty, so Jason had learned, was the only way to keep moving forward. They all lied, it was a part of their training, came as natural as breathing, but there was a line you had to be aware of.
“Bruce is dead and you can’t let go. Instead of helping me figure out how to keep Gotham running, you run off and bury your head in old books to find a solution to a problem that isn’t there! He’s gone. I needed you on patrol tonight and you didn’t show.”
Patrol had been just fine, Dick hadn’t needed him. Jason had kept an eye on the comms, they had done as good as they could with three men down. It hadn’t even been a busy night.
“You’re just giving up!”
“And you’re delusional!” Dick retorted.
He picked up one of the pages the closest to him. The originally white paper was covered by ink stains, diagrams smeared uncaringly all over it while Jason had been trying to figure out what exactly his ancestors had gotten up to when they tried to raise the dead.
“This is too much, Jason. You’re only setting yourself up for my failure. I let you keep researching because I thought it would help, but it’s only hurting you. You have to let go.”
“And leave?” Jason spat out. “Like you always do the moment something goes wrong with Bruce?”
Dick froze. His annoyance and misguided worry slowly twisted into dark anger. At that moment, it just felt right. Dick had ceased pretending that he was so much better than them, that he wasn’t struggling without Bruce around. Jason loathed how he sat at breakfast every day, acting as if it was all still alright and fine, smiling and lying continuously.
“I-“ Dick interrupted himself, reigning in his anger as everybody else watched him with keen eyes. “No, no, I’m not having this discussion with you. None of us are on board with your reckless endeavor, so you’re not doing it and that’s final.”
Jason turned to look at the rest of his family, but they were all averting their eyes. Of course, they would all side with Dick over him. He was older, more experienced, the first Robin out of all of them.
He wasn’t the resurrected boy who talked to ghosts and turned living beings to worthless decay with nothing more than a touch.
“I see,” Jason replied and grabbed his jacket from the chair.
Fine, it wasn’t like he needed any of them anyway. It would have been easier with more living anchors, but Batman had left his mark all over the city. Gotham was his, even the magic that buried itself so far underground that hardly anybody could see it knew who it belonged to. Jason had plenty of anchors he could use to bring Bruce back. What were five children compared to an entire city?
“Where are you going?” Tim spoke up. He had barely said a word since Jason and Dick had started fighting, but Jason supposed that it made sense given that Tim thought both of them were wrong.
“Away from here,” Jason replied. “Since Dick is so keen on running this show himself, he can do it. I’m out.”
“What?” Steph asked. “Wait! Jason, no, you have to stay!”
“What I need to do is fix this.”
Jason picked his backpack up from the ground and started stuffing his papers into it. He didn’t particularly care in which order he did it, he would have to sort through them all anyway once he was back in his apartment. He needed to toss those that were trash and copy the calculations and incantations that actually made sense and seemed like they were a good first step onto fresh sheets. Maybe he should get actual parchment. He didn’t usually work with dead writing materials, but with whatever he had on hand. His spells were powerful enough without, but he couldn’t afford any mistakes here.
Once he was finished, he threw his backpack over his shoulder and headed towards his bike, not sparing the group behind him another glance.
“Jason,” Dick started once more.
Jason just threw his hands up, dismissing him.
“Don’t worry, Richard,” he said. “It’s not like I can stay dead for long if something goes wrong. Don’t bother contacting me. I’ll come back once I’m finished.”
He couldn’t see his older brother’s reaction, but Jason would bet that he had flinched. They all hated to be reminded of Jason’s death, but it wasn’t like Jason could erase that part of him.
Jason put on his bright red helmet and turned on his bike. Then, without looking back, he drove off, disappearing into the dawn of a new day.
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do-not-careissa · 4 years
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Now that Men in Black has reinvaded my mind so have new plot bunnies. So have 2 Jason joins the min ideas/options.
1. Sort of a Mr and Mrs Smith type thing, jaykyle, only sadder and angstier:
Post death and resurrection Jason wasn't picked up by Talia, instead it was MiB. Using their alien tech they're able to heal him and put his mind back together. They know who he is, just like they know who Bruce and the Justice League are (for how much the Kents believed no one noticed their sudden baby acquisition, they were wrong. MiB's known all along, if anything they're the reason the Kents and other alien adopters and adoptees have done so well at staying hidden.) They give Jason the choice to either return to Bruce, go with a normal family (in both cases he'd of course have his memories wiped), or stay and work with them. Now while Jason might not have the Lazarus Pits affecting his emotions and mental stability here, he's still a teen/young adult (say like 18 or 19 by the time he's healed enough to leave) and his last memories of the bats and his bio mother weren't exactly the greatest. Add on top of that the feeling of being forgotten/replaced that would undoubtedly come at seeing the addition of, what, at least three more people to the batfam. He doesn't believe there's a place left for him there, decides to stay, at least he can do some good while he's at it.
Cut to a few years later, Jason's moved up the ranks, he's one of the organization's best agents (could be just that branch, division, or overall) but of course the job doesn't really leave much for certain other needs. So on his rare time off he'll slink off to this nice bar or something and just enjoy himself, feel human, all that good stuff. And that's how he gets involved with a certain Kyle Rayner. The guy seems normal enough, an artist with laughably bad pickup lines but a smile and eyes that make you want to laugh with him rather than at him. They have a night together, and that one night turns into two, then three, and by the fourth Jason's sure he's making a mistake here. Regulation says to keep contact with non-mib individuals to a minimum and don't give them a reason to remember you if you have to interact more than once. He shouldn't be doing this, really, but he's also given up so much over the years, both to mib, to the bats, to the universe, can you really blame him?
Between the two of them rain checks are a regular, either one or both claiming a sudden work trip that couldn't be skipped. It made Jason guilty every time but he couldn't just not go. This was his job after all. And Kyle, well he was just a normal guy who happened to be a bit loose in the head sometimes, it made sense for him to forget to call off meetups and hookups, that's just what normal people their age did right? It takes far too long for him to admit that he's in too deep, that he's fallen for this loveable dumbass. But the same could probably be said for Kyle too.
The moment they meet not as Jason and Kyle but as MiB and Green Lantern you could hear a pin drop. Jason couldn't believe this, not in a million years. Kyle? A fucking Green Lantern? Are you kidding?!
Because you see, while the general population and even the capes might be unaware of MiB, MiB is more than aware of them and they have a very big problem with them, especially the Lanterns. Because they know the GLs and Guardians would argue that earth is their terf and that minehas not right to set up rules and protocol, byt MiB has been on Earth longer, they've existed since Roswell if not earlier, GLs haven't touched Earth til maybe 15-20 years ago. And MiB's work is to protect not just the humans of Earth but the aliens who've made a home here, or even just those ones that are here for a visit. Thanks to the GLs, and by extension the Justice League, not only is MiB and its agents in so much more danger of being exposed or attacked, but so are those aliens.
Suddenly Jason's happy go lucky secret relationship has been soured if not ruined. Kyle, he'd trusted him, even l-, he actually liked him as more than just a fuck buddy, but this? He's devastated, he's angry, and while he's sure Kyle's feeling something like that too, he doesn't get to, not when he's siding with the group putting innocent people in danger, not when he's siding with the bats and Tha Guardians and everything Jason stands against.
He manages to catch Kyle off guard, taking him down and neuralyzing him quick enough that him can't take him down too. It hurts to see that blank look take over Kyle's face once the light fades, but he can't let that affect him. Kyle made his choice, and he needs to make his.
Idea 2: much angstier in the "fuck Bruce and the JL" sort of way
Post rhato 25 and Roy's death, Jason's health is deteriorating quickly. Maybe he lied about how well he was out of guilt so Roy wouldnt feel like he had to stay with Jason instead of going to Sanctuary. Now with no one there to help him, along with the mental and emotional toll, Jason's body is shutting down. This is it, he's accepted it, he fucking hates that this is how he goes, but well, it's kinda poetic that Bruce would ultimately be the reason for his deagb this time wouldn't it? Between the physical injuries he gave Jason and the mental ones he's caused, everything all ties back to Bruce.
So Jason's just there, accepting his fate, but then out of nowhere these suits just show up and they've got an offer for him. They know who he is, what he's gone through, they know how to help him and keep him safe. They can heal him. But the only way they can let him know exactly what they're doing or who they are is if he joins them. They say they've been watching him for a while, we're actually planning on approaching him, but the situation with Batman and now with the League and Jason's health has pushed their time table up. He's obviously skeptical til they really go in on everything, breaking down mib, breaking down what they try to do, and you know what, he's in. Fuck Bruce, fuck the JL, fuck them all.
None of them stepped in to help him, none of them did anything to stop Bruce, no one except Roy, Roy who's now dead because of them. They don't get to tell him what to do anymore, they don't get to control him.
So they bring Jason in for the procedure, and there's a few ways this could go. A) They just use whatever alien tech they have that heals him no issue, maybe need to replace a few bones or joints or something, whatever it is he's healed. B) they need to meld his DNA to a sample from an alien species that heals quickly (personal favorite, could go down the route of this giving Jason superhuman abilities, or even something akin to energy absorption as the reason he's able to heal which would make him a massive threat to everyone especially the gls (imagine him just draining their rings in minutes and then using that power against them)). C) the Lazarus Pits are actually of alien origin, and since Jason's already been dipped in one before and had his brain and body altered/healed by it, it still remains dormant in his system, they just need to activate it.
Whatever they do it works, and soon enough we get Jason as MiB and Bruce and the others all believing Jason to be dead ala MiB​ tricks. Months or even years later there comes a confrontation, the "I thought you were dead!" Shit. Or the GLs/guardians learn about them and try to impose their bs on them, try to scare them into disappearing, and guess who MiB sends to deal with them? Why their star agent of course.
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Text
[New draft]
I’m finally getting hitched Tying The Knot Official Words
Wedding Vows
by roy harper, putting the laughter in manslaughter since 1983
A couple years ago, you asked me why I loved you, and I said “I-I don’t know.” Except you weren’t really happy with that answer, I could tell, so I tried to put it into nicer words. I mean, I’ve loved a lot of people in my life, or at least I thought I did. Look how that turned out. And, you know, I kind of write them off when they leave me, or when I leave them, because obviously that means it couldn’t have been love in the first place. But then I know that’s a big fat fucking lie because I still remember all of them, still remember exactly how it felt to tumble head over heels. So maybe they reason they stayed with me forever, despite one of us leaving, has to do with them and not me? And I was about halfway through this awful explanation when Dick gave us a call, told us that dealer we were tracking had just put his dirty little hands in Bludhaven, so we went to go deal with that. 
Both of us were glad that conversation was over, and I’m pretty sure you forgot all about it. But I didn’t. I never forgot about it, and I realized I never really answered your question. So, here goes.
I mean, I thought I was so smart when you met me. Sure, I was at my absolute lowest. But I was 25 and reckless, and the heroin had me feeling like a real person for the first time, you know? A human being, with the kind of secrets a grown-up kept, telling the kind of lies grown-ups told. And I thought I loved the way grown-ups loved. Always on the move, always leaving. Because it was either leave or get left. And I thought that was love. And I thought that was a brilliant idea. I was all dark and tough and had this tragic backstory, and I thought I was fucking irresistible, but only for a night. I thought I was fucking irresistible for a night, and after that I wasn’t worth shit.  
Now, I’m looking back at 25 year old me and the only thought going through my head was, what an asshole. Just, everything about me was supremely dickish. But most of all, it was the way I treated relationships. Do you remember that time you, me, and Kori went to that carnival? And Kori won that strength competition and we got free cotton candy? And I just gorged myself on candy floss, man. I was worse that Wally used to be, back in the day. And then we went on all those carnival rides and I thought to myself, I’d be fine. I run around jumping off rooftops with grappling arrows, and I used to practice marital arts with Dick Grayson. Motion sickness doesn’t happen to me. And then like half an hour later I was puking my guts out and you stood there and laughed at me? That. That’s how I treated love. I gobbled up everything I could get, and it was way more than I could handle, and then I’d throw it all up and run away. 
I’m not 25 anymore, but it feels like I’m still running. Except I can’t get away with what I used to do, ‘cause Kori can hear my fucking heartbeat and you check my arms for track marks all the time and Dick bribed his way into being my second emergency contact after you. So I hide away in my room and sort of melt onto my sofa. But not the good melting, like the way I melt into your mouth like you snipped all my strings. The gross kind of melting where I’m curled up onto the couch and I just wanna hack all my hair off with a knife and it feels like my brain is leaking all over the sofa and I know you killed most of my old dealers but I wanna bring them back to life because just one more hit, I just need one more hit, and I wanna drink myself into a rage but you locked away all the alcohol with a bat-lock that even I can’t break. Figures. It’s funny. You’ll shoot yourself in the neck before you go to Bruce for anything, but if it’s for me, you’ll swallow your pride in a second and get whatever the hell you need. 
I guess I’m just scared. I’m scared that I’m imaginary. I’m scared I’ll always end up reinventing myself every day to spare other people the trouble of having to do that for me. That what I want everyone to see always takes precedent to who I really am. I’m scared that I’ve finally lost it, that I’m crazy, that I’ve finally gone mad. But I’m even more scared that I’m perfectly sane. Because if I’m sane, then what excuse do I have? What excuse do I have for treating people the way I do, like they’re problems that I have to solve or explain or else I’ll just fall behind everyone else.
And that’s where you come in. Fuck, Jay. That’s, that’s when you came in.
I tried to word vomit that last part to you one night when you thought I was drunk and I thought you were drunk but neither of us had had a drop, and we hid behind the curtain of alcohol to have a heart to heart. And you told me people don’t have to be solved or explained. We’re all just ghost stories, and maybe we should just try to stay that way. Because we spend our days doing wonderful things, horrible things, and sometimes there’s no reason behind it. Or, wait, fuck, no. There is a reason. But that reason’s too simple and too straightforward to really be satisfying, you know? And then we keep forgetting the lesson that we learned and re-mystifying these problems that we already solved because deep down we don’t actually want to figure out why we love each other but hurt each other and-
Fuck. Sorry, Jaybird. This was supposed to be a simple answer to a simple question.
I think. Um. No, I don’t think. I know. I know I love you because I have to.
There’s no “why” about it. Any more than there’s a reason why Kori loves the dew drops that gather in the morning grass, or why that old hag in the apartment next to us can’t keep a plant alive for the life of her. I mean, I guess there is a reason. There’s always a reason, there’s always a “why.” I don’t really understand it, though. And you know how much that bothers me, you gotta know how much I hate that. Maybe if I dug around in myself for a bit, really thought some stuff through, talked to some people I thought I was done talking to, I’d figure it out. I’d figure out where all this love comes from. What it’s for.
But then the question would be answered. Why do I love you? Boom, I’d have an explanation. The ghost story would be over. And there’s really no point in telling a ghost story that has an ending, all nice and neat and wrapped up in a little package.
Right now, I think I’m finally at a place where I can just let it be. It’s just you and me. Me sleeping ‘till noon, then waking up to see you in my kitchen, looking like a fucking greek god reincarnated, a smile on your face that I don’t think anyone else but me gets to see, flipping an omelette with the same ease and grace that you flip knives. Me in fiddling with a couple spare parts, adding on to my arrows, and you either sliding up behind me, wrapping your arms around my waist and whispering in my ear how good I look in this old tank top or you throwing a greasy rag at my face and laughing at how it messed up the bun I had my hair put up in and telling me to wash up, dinner’s in 10. The two of us crowding around a set of blueprints, scheming and figuring out how to best hurt this one greedy asshole and send him down the highway to hell. And you honestly know all my secrets, all the dark thoughts I had when I was doped up and hating the world and everyone in it. And I’m the only one who knows what really happened in that funky green goo you call a Lazarus Pit, I’m the only one who knows what you went through under the League. The fact that we don’t have any secrets gives me this feeling in my chest, it’s warm and golden and sorta like how you feel with Dick Grayson smiles at you, except this time I think I caused it.
I just hope to god I’m right when I say “I love you.”
‘Cause I do. Jason. I love you. I just, fuck. I like being around you. And for the first time in a long while, I don’t think I’m going anywhere.
Fuck. That was stupid. This barely even made sense anyway. 
[Are you sure you want to delete this document?]
[Document deleted]
[New draft]
Wedding Vows.
From Roy Harper. To Jason Todd. 
I was trying something new with this and I have no idea whether it worked or not but oh well here it is.
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pl-panda · 5 years
Text
Damienette aranged marriage: part 3
Whoa... Two parts in one day. Sorry if this one is worse, but yet again I wrote this instead of sleeping. 
Warning: there will be some cursing from Jason, but can you really blame him? Credits: Miraculous Ladybug team for the elements I take from MLB show. DC for their characters, @ozmav for the AU, @maribat-archive for giving me access to so many different stories to have take inspirations from, @thyladyanput for idea for Chat Damian and me for the plot.
Part 1
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Next
Damienette arranged marriage: Part 3
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“And why would you tell her everything?!” Jason screamed, still hidden behind Batman’s towering posture.
“Because she is my wife Todd!” Damian screamed. The silence in the room was thick enough that if the assassin swinged his sword, he would be able to cut it in half. Finally, Bruce was the one to break it.
“Fuck.”
This worked like detonating a bomb. Immediately, Red Hood, Red Robin and Nightwing pushed their way into the room and surrounded the two teens. 
“You were gone for less than forty-eight hours!” Dick
“How did you manage to get married!” Drake
“You are just fifteen demon spawn!” Todd
“And who is she!?” Drake again.
Talia watched this whole ordeal with no small amount of amusement. That is until Bruce suddenly appeared next to her. His frown was downright scary even for her. “Explain. Now!” The growl was low and emotionless, but it was enough to yet again put the room in dead silence.
“Beloved. It is good to see you too.” Talia smiled seductively.
“I am not in the mood. Now talk!”
“Fine.” She dropped all illusion of niceness. “I made peace with old enemy of the League. Or even a shaky alliance. But to seal the treaty, an assurance was required.”
“And that assurance was?” Jason asked confused, earning a facepalm from Dick.
“The Royal Marriage. An heir of the League and future leader of the Order.”
“And that leader would be… her?” Batman asked, not fully convinced.
Marinette was standing there the whole time, greatly uncomfortable with the attention Bat Family was giving her and Damian. She did read a bit on them, but it was always Alya who never shut up about heroes. For the most part, she preferred talk about Ladybug, but lately there was slowly forming a rift. The aspiring reporter was falling into Lila’s lies, posting unreliable videos on Ladyblog. Rossi had it for Ladybug and Alya, together with the rest of Marinette’s class, was falling for her machinations. They still hanged out with Marinette, but there was this distaste forming around her. She was no longer their to-go person with personal problems, being replaced by Lila who was awful at helping others unless it benefited her. But now Marinette had more pressing matter than a pity little liar. She looked at Batman, then at the bat-kids and finally at Damian. They were all looking at her expectantly.
“Oh right! Sorry. I did it again…” She gave them a sheepish smile. “I am Ladybug, hero of Paris and Great Guardian of the Miraculous.” She stated. Most of the heroes (bar Damian who knew a tidy bit about the Order of the Guardians) were confused.
“Paris doesn’t have heroes. There aren’t even any supervillains there.”
“Excuse me?! How does nobody knows what is going on in Paris!” Ladybug shouted. “Ugh! Seriously?!”
Batman narrowed his eyes. “Forgive me, Ladybug, but the Justice League would know if there was a threat in Paris. So who are you really.”
“Then ask Green Lantern. He was the one who laughed at my plea for help.” She scowled, but then her demeanor changed. She calmed down and gave a sheepish smile. “But guess I should thank him. I can only dread what would happen if Superman was akumatized. Or Flash. Or anyone really. I don’t think I could win.”
Batman frowned. He would have a talk with Hal once he dealt with this. If there was really a threat like that, ignoring it was not only stupid, but dangerous. And the girl was at best Damian’s age. She was dealing with this for how long? The way she spoke suggested that she was in charge. A child fighting in a war all alone. 
“For now beloved, it should be enough for you that the two of them are legally married.”
“Like hell!” Jason shouted at her, waving his gun. “They are fifteen. No court would accept this.”
“Actually,” Tim started, “under some laws they can be married. For example ‘The Personal Status Law of Muslims’ in Sudan sets the minimum age at ten.” He spoke like he was reading an encyclopedia.
“But we are somewhere between Nepal and China. I don’t think there are such laws here.” Dick said, but his confidence wavered.”
“Tt. First of why don’t anyone ask me or Marinette about our opinion?” Damian asked irritated.
“Shut up Demon Spawn. Adults are working here”
“If you don’t shut up, Todd, I will make you eat your dirty socks until you choke on the stench.” The young boy threatened. Marinette cringed at this, not really wanting to imaging such situation. 
“The marriage stays.” Talia stated coldly. “Otherwise, I will not be able to stop League from going to war against Order of the Guardians.”
“You are their leader.” Batman pointed out.
“That may be correct, beloved, but I am but a regent. Only after Damian finally assumes the leadership, his word will be law. I do try to reform the league, but there is little I can do in this situation.”
“Bullshit!” Jason cursed. “You are just manipulative bitch.”
“Jason!” Dick hit the back of Red Hood’s helmet, causing him to almost tumble. “Language. There are minors in the room.”
“Don’t worry Mousier.” Marinette noted that the whole debate shifted to English. She learned it years ago when she first got interested in fashion. Some of the greatest fashion critiques wrote only in English and she didn’t want to be left behind. And other foreign critiques and designers were always translated into English. “After today, cursing is the least of my worries.” During the talk, Marinette pulled her yo-yo to check the situation in Paris. The good news were that there was no Akuma attack since her confrontation with Hawkmoth. Bad news: she was gone for over forty hours already.
“What exactly is the deal?” Bruce sighted. He loved his boys, but he could practically feel his hair graying. At least the girls didn’t go around marrying total strangers. “I want the full story Talia. Don’t even try to deceive us.”
“As you wish Beloved.” She smiled and sat back at her chair. Jason was about to hop onto where Marinette sat, but Damian ‘accidentally’ tripped him. Ladybug detransformed and Tikki flew out. 
“What is this flying mouse?!” Dick screeched upon seeing a kwami.
“My name is Tikki. I am kwami, or if you prefer a small god, of creation and luck.” 
“Okay… I’ve totally seen weirder.” Jason shrugged and Tim was too busy trying to plug in his pocket kettle to make himself some coffee.
“Ekhm.” Bruce faux-coughted to get their attention. “Begin Talia.”
“Many centuries ago, magic jewels bestowing extraordinary powers were created. These were... the Miraculous. Throughout history, heroes have used these jewels for the good of the human race. Order of The Guardians was responsible for protecting and distributing the Miraculous for the good of all humanity. Some time in the past, League has learned about the existence of this artifacts, more powerful than even Lazarus Pit. A secret war began between two organizations. There was a constant stalemate until the Order was mysteriously destroyed without a trace. We believed all miraculous to be lost until two years ago heroes and villains using them appeared in Paris. Initially, we ignored them, long since abandoning this war. But then, some month ago a temple of the Guardians suddenly reappeared with the Order in chaos. The League attacked, but they were strong enough to withstand the initial strike and turn it into a siege. In time, we would have succeeded and wiped them once and for all. But instead, the Guardians understood their situation and reached to us with agreement. A truce and alliance, in exchange for sparing them.”
“Yeah right! Only an idiot would take such offer!” Red Hood kept arguing with the Assassin woman.
“Or a strategist. Either way, the League wins. They no longer need to worry about threat, but this way they also get an ally.” Batman remained expressionless, but he kept sending Damian and Marinette side-glares. He wanted to know how they are coping with this. The girl was a bit shaken, but that was to be expected. He would talk more with her later. What surprised him was that Damian seemed to show concern for her. The kind he usually reserved only for his brothers and father. 
“Yes. While our methods differ, the League and the Order have a common goal: prosperity for all humanity. But to ensure that neither side would go against the other, there needed to be a more tangible symbol of this union.”
“Marriage of the heirs. In the past such method was often used to symbolize an alliance. It symbolized equality of both partners and parties they represented.” Tim acted as an universal encyclopedia again, which Jason did exploit to tease him mercilessly while the others focused on the discussion.
“And let me guess” Dick frowned. “If they break the deal, it means war?”
“Yes.” Damian simply nodded. The memory of his mother’s threat hanging over the girl’s live was still fresh. Now that he got to know her better Damian was surprised that someone so brave and strong could at the same time be such emotionally unstable or open. It was almost refreshing. His family was awful with emotions and beyond that women only saw his last name. Many times he dealt with liars who tried to use him to get into the pockets of his father. But with Marinette he was sure that she was genuine with her feelings. He could not find any reason for her not to be at the moment, especially after she revealed her secret to him. 
“So what? We are just supposed to roll with it? What will press think? You will give Alfred a heart attack Damian.” Dick rambled. Youngest Wayne decided to ignore him and turn to his father. 
“While this might be a bit inconvenient, I believe it is the best course of action for now.” Damian spoke with cold and calculative voice.
“And what about you?” Batman turned to the girl, who for the most part lately was busy discussing something with the kwami in French. Bruce was proficient, but he was too focused on Talia and Damian.
“I… I accepted that my duty as Great Guardian comes with certain responsibilities. If this is what it takes to preserve peace, then I guess… I guess I will roll with it.” She smiled at Dick, almost daringly. Damian smiled too. Anyone who teased his brothers like that earned some points in his book. “But I can’t just leave Paris. For now it’s peaceful, but I don’t know how long it will last. And there are my parents… Oh Kwami! What will I tell my parents! Or my friends! Or my class! What if they reject me for this and I will be kicked from home, then I will not become a professional designer and I will never fulfill my dream and I will be forever lonely…” She unintentionally rambled in mixture of English and French while walking in circle and waving her hands. Damian grabbed her by her wrists to stop her before she accidentally knocked someone out and then cupped her hands with his. She was still talking random stuff, which made absolutely zero sense. Damn. She is cute when she is rambling. What!? He shut down the intrusive thoughts and focused on the girl… his wife.
“Calm down. Take deep breaths. You will not be alone.” He hoped it would work, but she barely slowed down. He sighted. Damian looked her deep in her bluebell eyes and she saw the two whirlpools of jade green he had. They were more prominent that Adrien’s. “Listen to my voice. All is going to be fine. We will not leave you.” This time, it did work and she calmed down. 
Rest of the Batfam watched in shock how Damian has acted. It was most unusual for him to initiate physical contact at all, much less act this gentle. They looked at Talia, but she shrugged.
“I didn’t do anything if that’s what you think.” She smirked. “But I don’t think I needed.” Two newly-wed were just standing there, starring in each other’s eyes.
“Robin!” Batman finally got him to break out of this. “We gotta go. We will figure out exactly what to do later.”
“Fine. But we are taking Marinette with us.” Damian stubbornly stated.
“Yes. She should not stay here. And I have more questions for her.”
The flight to Paris was surprisingly fast. They traveled in perfect silence, but she felt rather uncomfortable with how everyone (bar Damian) sent her a suspicious glares. Finally, they landed around 8 PM on the rooftop of local Wayne Enterprises headquarter. She walked out first, happy to finally get back onto her home turf.
“Now there are some questions that needs to be answered.” Batman spoke.
“Uhm… Okay?”
“Stop intimidating her Father.” Damian scowled. 
Bruce reluctantly nodded. “Maybe it would be the best to discuss it in private of my office.” He pressed some buttons on his glove and the bat-plane camouflage. Well, it was probably more of Bat-cargo plane since it could fit six people comfortably and still have much space free. 
They got into the office, where Bruce had a total of five armchairs set around the coffee table. Immediately, Damian and Dick took two of them, leaving the head one for Bruce and one in between the two Waynes for Marinette. Tim didn’t bother trying to fight with Jason over who gets the last place, instead opting to just jump onto computer chair at the desk and activating a holo-screen. He quickly connected to Batcomputer and started to pull various files (mostly on Marinette and her close ones, but she didn’t see it). 
“So tell me. What is our young couple planning to do now?” Dick teased them.
Jason was standing next to the alcohol bar, pouring several glasses of whiskey. Before Bruce could protest, he brought five and placed them on the table. His reaction to disapproving glare from the other adults was to just shrug. “What? They are married. I think underage drinking would be the least of the problems. Oh! That reminds me.” Jason grinned maliciously and pulled his wallet. He tossed something square and silver at Damian. “I don’t want any demon spawns junior running around soon.”
Once Marinette realized what was that and what was he implying she turned redder than Tim’s outfit. Damian scowled. “I have a sword on me Todd, so watch what you are saying. I might not have chosen her to be my bride, but I will not let you embarrass her just for your fun.”
Jason saw an opportunity and he would be damned if he didn’t take it. “Which sword are you talking about?”
Damian hissed like an angry cat and drawn his sword, lunging at his brother. Todd initially wanted to block the attack with his gun, but fine steel cut right through it. Seeing murder in Damian’s face he did the only plausible thing: started to run.
Marinette was inventing new shades of red with her blushing. Bruce gave her an apologetic look. “Please, don’t take his comments to heart. Jason is…” before batman could find a right word there was a sound of something crashing, followed by a painful yelp. In just a moment, Damian returned happy, his sword a bit bloody.
“Please tell me you didn’t kill him…” Dick begged. Marinette was not sure whether this was a joke or not, but the longer she stayed with the batfam, the less sane they appeared.
“Nah. But he didn’t look where he was running and toppled the stack of boxes and I ended up stabbing him in his left calf. He will live.” Damian assured them. And true to his words, a limping Jason appeared in the doors. He grabbed a fresh bottle of whiskey on his way to the armchair and slumped resigned. “Demon spawn!”
“Idiot!”
“Enough!” Bruce wanted to pull his hair out. “We came here to discuss a certain situation not stab each other. Marinette?”
“Yes monsieur Wayne?” She asked, still stunned with what happened. She had to admit Damian acter chiviliarus protecting her honor, even if his way was pretty violent. 
“I was trying to ask you, what do you plan on doing now?”
“I… I don’t know. This all happened so fast…”
“It’s okay. I don’t think anyone would have a plan for such situation.” Dick reassured her
“Bruce does. It’s inside the safe in the batcave in folder labeled ‘Talia never gives up’.” Tim chimed in before returning to his research. 
“Well, no one sane has such plans.” Dick tried to cheer her up. It did work even if just a bit. “But ask yourself what do you want.”
“Well… I would wish to finish my education and I always dreamed about becoming a professional fashion designer.” 
“And how is this plan working so far?” Bruce inquired.
“Well, I do run a small internet boutique, where I take commissions and uncle Jagged refuses to wear anything that wasn’t personally designed by me.” She said casually.
“Wait a moment… Uncle Jagged as in Jagged Stone, the world-class rock musician?!” Tim suddenly shouted.
“Uh… yes?” She got confused
“But his only designer is the mysterious MDC! That would mean you are MDC!”
“Uh… yes?” Marinette had no idea why Tim acted like that.
“Oh god! Oh god! I got to meet MDC! Can I get your authograph?” He was suddenly next to her, holding a copy of the her first album cover she made for Jagged.
“Sure.” She signed it and handed it back. It read: ‘Good luck TD, MDC’.
Tim Fainted.
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Taglist (sorry if I missed you)
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thattimdrakeguy · 4 years
Text
Who’s Damian when he’s actually Damian?
People really freaking exaggerate how much of a maniac Damian is in his early years (besides his origin, obviously).
Like his origin to Batman and Robin is a giant stretch to be completely honest. Decapitating people, to helping people in a matter of months is a really big battle against the suspension of disbelief. Which is honestly my biggest problem with early Damian beyond the other writers completely messing with him to the point that it makes him come off like a crap character.
But beyond being extra violent with criminals, stubborn, and obviously bitter: He honestly isn’t that bad? He gets along with Dick well enough, except when they have a genuine moment caused by Damian’s glorification of himself and his parents. Though they really write Dick and Damian wrongly nowadays.
It’s really exaggerated how much of a maniac he was though.
Has lessons to learn obviously, and isn’t well-adjusted. But I enjoy it.
I really like the dynamic Damian has with Dick and Alfred when it came to how it was supposed to be. He’s a mature, young adult at the age of 10, and they treat him so, but yet he’s still a kid that needs to learn so they find a balance in it. As in they still mostly treat him as the young adult he is at heart, but still acknowledge that he has a lot to learn.
Dick treats Damian with respect as much as he can, and isn’t over affectionate like they act like nowadays. Like they basically to an extent gave Dick and Damian Tim and Dick’s relationship--when Dick and Damian had their own unique and interesting dynamic that suited them much more.
He’s more of a dad knowing he has to find the best way to teach his kid a lesson rather than all the nicknames and hugs and stuff they act like they are now.
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I’m not saying Dick was abusive to Damian or anything, cause he probably isn’t smacking him all that hard. But they greatly changed their dynamic for something already done and a lot less interesting.
And people always sort of implied this thing were Damian cared a lot about Robin, but in context Damian didn’t really care. It was more about something different than that.
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He wasn’t about Robin.
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It was all about his dad and living up to his legacy. He has this super idealized version of Bruce in his head (even though he seemed to really dislike him initially in his origin, but Damian was super inconsistent even by the same writers) that he wants to live up to. And later on it was about his father son relationship with Dick. Damian’s parental figures are what causes his inner conflict.
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Like Damian’s adult personality I also just find kind of endearing? Like I don’t like the current Damian at all. At freaking all, because it isn’t him. The Damian they act like is just--more of a normal kid in spirit I guess(?). Damian being a miniature adult and people respecting that is so much better than implying him being different is a problem by making him more normal. I enjoy the respect they have for him here with how he is. He’s just being himself and they aren’t pushing him like it’s a problem with him as a person. It’s about his morals not how he’s different. They respect that he’s different from other people his age. Which is oddly a warm dynamic to me that I appreciate. The current stuff trying to act like he’s more normal--completely misses the point of who he is as a character and personality, or even what the point of his lessons were.
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As the way it was meant to be, they don’t treat him in a way that he would clearly find incredibly patronizing.
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Which is super refreshing after so many writers decided to ignore the uniqueness of Damian to instead make him a lot more--typical and cheap fan service-y.
I also wanna say. I don’t think the comic is good by any means. Characters are out of character sometimes. Dick tries to resurrect Batman when he was against Tim trying it. Which they mention--but, like, it comes across like they only mention it because they’re aware they’re making a big contradiction, and it’s barely even handled. They make Jason have some strange complex about being Dick and dying his hair, even retconning his white streak being dyed in to being a gray streak from the Lazarus pit. They also imply Dick wants to date Kate Kane--which is...ew.
Also Dick constantly saying “Tim Drake” instead of just Tim, like they’d confuse him for some other Tim, as if he’s already partially forgotten comes off totally wrong. I can’t imagine it was the intention but it’s sort of icky how they completely changed their dynamic just for the sake of a change.
But as far as Damian’s character goes. It just makes it a lot sadder what they ended up doing with him. When he was a lot more interesting the way they had him. Instead of making him constantly regress, and at the same time use him for fan service by having things he wouldn’t do, and even turning him into a freaking joke. Just continuing with what made him unique would’ve been a lot better.
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When they went for an odd gag it actually was because of them using his character instead of the joke being “Haha Damian is doing something he wouldn’t ever do” which is horrible character work, and super lazy comedy. When doing a joke that uses the character is far better at representing the character, and even builds characterk.
And another thing I much more appreciate is how they actually have Damian caring about his dad dying.
One of the biggest pains of Red Robin to me was the scene where Tim became Red Robin. One, cause Tim would never hit a kid. Two, Dick wouldn’t just suddenly think Tim is his equal and cast aside Tim when he knows how much Robin meant to Tim. Three, because Damian came off as a generic snotty kid who didn’t even care his dad died.
Damian doesn’t make jokes here. It’s his thing that’s he’s very serious. He’s very mature and adult-like for his age, that’s his endearing quality. He’s very serious and intense when it comes to his dad--like how it would actually be.
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They portray Bruce as Damian’s main weakness. There’s no weird contradictions here about rather Damian is egotistical or insecure. He’s very prideful in himself and who he came from, but when it comes to his dad he becomes worried, because of how highly he thinks of him.
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The portrayal of Talia (that I didn’t really feel like screenshotting) is of course infamously horrible, and out of character for her. But tis the reason why I’m not an actual fan of this serious or Grant Morrison in-general, or even this era.
Like it’s a plotpoint she does something to Damian’s spine to make it so she can control him--it’s super freaking dumb even for a comic. At least in this modern age.
Just how soulful and mature Damian is, is always why that’s what I say I like in him when ever I talk about him when I like him (which is whenever his writing doesn’t really annoy me at that time, or some other thing). Because it’s like--what he’s meant to be like. They ruined him afterwards to me personally. Trying to make something he’s not just like Tim except in their own unique ways given they’re different characters.
And personally, I don’t even think Damian’s character arc is that well done. It sounds great, but reading it, it honestly isn’t that amazing. He just kind of accepts to be better, and, like, he has a few moments here and there of learning, but it’s not actually a lot. It’s very overhyped. It’s genuinely done super lazy, like I think a lot of the writing in this series is lazy, but while there’s a few great moments--it’s just moments, and it’s hard for me to really get into it when it’s just moments.
To me this comic is very overrated, but like--as a showing of what Damian’s meant to be, given this is written by his creator. It makes things really disappointing for me more so, even though current comics already had me depressed with Tim, and even already Damian to an extent, but this just really sets it in.
I’m still someone who has the complicated opinion of I like Damian as a character in a way but I don’t really. Because he still doesn’t really have any stories I like--I pretty much just liked how he was in the beginning because of how interesting he was even if his stories never used it well--and continued to not like him because I feel like pretty much every other writer no matter what the fandom says bastardized him.
So most of my opinions still remain besides a different perspective on how Damian actually was in the beginning, but still. Like I still don’t think he’s a good character purely because of his later writers, and his character arcs general laziness when it comes to how it actually is on the page. But it’s just what he could be I guess. Which is how a lot of people are about him I suppose.
It really gets me how he has the same similar problems as Tim. Had a very obvious set character, random changes that people treat as character development even though when you look deeper it’s a lot more shallow cause it doesn’t freaking add up, they can’t even freaking draw them right anymore, and everyone has a weird inconsistent idea on what they’re even like because of all the bad writing.
It’s a headache.
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astranne · 4 years
Text
Miraculous and The Light (HC)
Ok, so. This HC is based on this idea. It’s a miraculous x dc crossover and one of the best ideas, I’ve read recently. I really liked it and this is why I’m forcing myself to write my ideas down. 
Before we start the HC, I need to clear some things. Marinette becomes the guardian in age of 13, the kwami are teaching her as good as they can. Luka has the snake miraculous, Chloé the bee (but new costume), Kagami the dragon (again new costume) and Adrien is Chat Noir. Alix has the bunny and Kim the ape miraculous. (The two are chaos and they smelled Lila’s bullshit before she came back the second time). They deal with Hawkmoth as good as they can and they do good. Until Lila does her shit again. She manipulates Alya, which leads also Nino to be one of her followers and since Adrien is his best friend, he starts to listen to Lila. He becomes obsessed with Ladybug and her identity. The team doesn’t really notice, since it’s subtle and slowly becoming worse. So, now let’s start with the HC.
The Team protects Paris, Marinette is the leader
The situation becomes worse, the akumas take longer to defeat
They try to contact the JL, but nobody listens
And Chat Noir comes lesser to the fights, claiming his privat life is stressfull
At first, everybody understands, but it doesn’t stop and Chat becomes like a bad behaved child/brat 
Lila causes another Hero Day, the Team almost looses. Chat Noir didn’t show up and the Team is angry. Chloé is ready to skin a cat
After the Hero Day, they accidentally reveal their idtities. Their group becomes closer, everybody can see, they work even better now. 
Chat is envy
And Tikki is angry. No, scratch that. She’s mad. This boy could’ve been such a good cat, and now this?! 
Since Plagg is her opposite, and she’s the one of Plagg, they keep each other in balance. And they aren’t in balance at all. She takes over Marinette (while she is Ladybug) and starts to rip Chat/Adrien in shreds
Whole Paris witness this and is terrified. Who knew Ladybug had such power? 
Chat tries to save his face/life/’hero’ persona, but since Marinette is the guardian, she stripps him of his Miraculous, while Tikki wipes out his memories. Adrien’s former friends are sad, but also glad, they have one problem less
But now. Since Tikki used her more of her powers, some people notice, such as Klarion. He’s the server of chaos, but keeps in balance with creation. And the two aren’t balanced at all.
He talks to the Light, and surprise, surprise. Ra’s al Ghul and Vendal Savage felt it too
They begin to search and are surprised, that so many miraculous are active. The Light digs deeper and Vendal is very close getting up and burn Paris down. And take Hawkmoth with it
The inner circle of the Light (Vendal Savage, Klarion, Ra’s al Ghul, Lex Luthor, Deathstroke (there are still more members, but I will explain shortly))
Now, their primar goal is not to take over the world, or make everyone ‘see the light’. That’s what the ‘lesser’ members think (the ones, who are not in the inner circle) They want to keep the balance in the world, keep ‘peace’. But they know, it can’t be always peace, with creation there comes always destruction (Tikki and Plagg are totally their inspiration and mentors or whatever you could call that) And for this, they don’t always do ‘good’ things, like heroes do
Bc of this, every hero, every other villian thinks, that the light is bad. It’s a very good cover and so they can hide their true plans. So, the inner circle sends Black Manta after the Young Justice (the season 2 happens here) and go to Paris. 
They find the miraculous users while fighting an amok and an akuma and are impressed. Clearly, most of them have no training and they hold themself formidable. 
The inner circle talks with the team, which is wary. But then the kwamis recognize them and the teenagers (probably 15?) are so glad, that they finally have help. Not the one they expected, but still help
Vendal was one the first guardian, a simple man and then blessed by Tikki and Plagg. He trained other guardians and miraculous users until he almost died
Ra’s al Ghul was once a dragon, but also used the cat miraculous. This is the reason, why he can use the lazarus pit and isn’t mad
Klarion knows about the kwamis, the first gods, often makes rituals and such stuff. But he never saw a miraculous before
Deathstroke knows about the miraculous, but never knew, what power they truly hold
Lex Luthor knew about them too
The team is offered a traditional training with the League and since they are all true holders, they will master it faster than anyone before. Vendal wants to train Marinette as the guardian, after she finished hers with Ra’s. Deathstroke will be their mentor and Klarion will teach them in magic. 
Lex takes them under his wing, teaching them about buisness, money, politics and manipulating
They train and fight Hawkmoth for two years. Sometimes, Vendal takes over as Chat Noir, sometimes Ra’s, to keep Marinette and Tikki balanced. But they need to find her true holder, which isn’t that easy, while they are still in training and fighting
The team is around 17/18, when they finally defeat Hawkmoth and Mayura. The major of Paris and the president of France tell the world finally the truth about the situation (world is shocked (especially when they hear, that the Justice League didn’t help))
Now, the heroes want to help, after Wonder Woman, Aquaman and Dr. Fate, as well Zatanna, kicked their asses for being dumb bitches. When Batman doesn’t stop (he’s an ass sometimes, but I don’t hate him) they threaten to leave the JL. He doesn’t belive it and suddendly he has 4 members less. 
The four go to Paris, even when there is a heroes ban. They offer their alliance, but keep their distance, which everyone is glad. 
Since Hawkmoth and his sidechick have been defeated, the Miraculous Team retires. Or so everybody thinks. 
They all leave Paris, letting their friends and family think they have a job/go on vacation (Kagami and Luka fake their death, Marinette too) 
Lila is smug, bc she thinks, she won, since Alix and Kim just leave and Chloé is a weeping mess
The six go to the League, where they learn new/more things and become the elite squad of Ra’s. 
(Ra’s is totally a proud parent, who shows, how much his kids are better than anyones. Well, as good as he can with his stoic face)
The six still use their miraculous, but have new costumes (darker colors, mostly black) 
And so life goes on, until the JL and the YJ attack the light. They take many hits, loose many bases and the first time, the heroes meet the squad
The six are just called ‘the squad’. They switch miraculous, so the heroes don’t make connections. 
(Marinette is White (rabbit), while Chloé is Red (dragon), Kagami is Brown (monkey), Alix is Blue (snake), Kim is Scarlett (ladybug), Luka is Black (cat)) Over their costumes, they wear a typical League uniform. 
They totally rip the heroes apart
Anyway. The JL and YJ are wary about the sqaud, they all know, they are deadly. Some think, even deadlier than Deathstroke. 
After the attack, the squad meets Lady Shiva and Talia al Ghul
And her new pet project
You already know it. Jason Todd
His mind is fucked up, he doesn’t remember much until this woman in red smiles at him and just hugs him? Girl, this is the league?! 
Jason is totally Marinette’s black cat. 
He’s suddenly being trained (can you imagine a confused Jason Todd, trained by Vendal, Klarion and the rest of the team? Bc I do) and partnered with Plagg, who absolutly loves his new holder. There is so much chaos in him, he even survived the pit!
The squad goes on mission, mostly to mess with the JL, who notice, there is a new member. And oh shit- he destroys everything. And there Superman curmbles to ash... (no worries, he’s brought back)
Jason isn’t trying to kill Bruce, well, he still fights against Batman, but he doesn’t want him dead (the heroes think, the squad tries to kill them)
Some years pass (I have no idea, what happens in season 3 (Young Justice) since I didn’t have the time to watch it) the miraculous slowly become balanced again and the team is doing great
Until Talia snitches Bruce (bc she’s a little bitch) that Jason is alive. Not only that, he’s a part of the squad. Ra’s personally tries to kill his daughter- bc no Talia! You can’t just go and tell secrets! (silently crusing in many languages about the balance and how his own daughter betrayes him) He’s so angry, that he disowns his daughter and claims 7 year old Damian as his heir.
Bruce tries to hunt Jason down, but no success
Marinette takes Damian under her wing and gives him the miraculous of the tiger (Damian is so proud, that he’s a true holder). She and Jason become somewhat his parents, just like the rest of the team
Alix and Kim are totally together, as well Cloé and Kagami, while Luka has a on/off relationship with Lady Shiva, who is the true holder to the fox miraculous
Talia attacks the league, when Damian is 10 and takes him to his father
Damian hides the miraculous and Roarr, but Alfred knows. He always knows. (Totally cliche, but he’s the true holder to the peacock)
Damian acts like a brat like in canon, but can be such a softy
But only with his true family
Jason moves to Gotham, becomes the Red Hood, while Marinette becomes Scarlett (his partner) 
The rest of the squad starts to recruit new holders and start to train them, often visited by Jason and Marinette
One tragic night, Batman fights against Red Hood, almost kills him, when Scarlett breaks his arm. Robin (Damian) comes to help, freezes, when he sees his family. He stops fighting, takes a deep breath and turns to his father.
Batman is confused, but then Robin says, that this is Jason, the second Robin and that he will not fight family
Batman lashes out, being an idiot, talking some nonsense about Jason being a criminal and suddenly Robin disapears. The big bat thinks, his kid went home 
Well, he does, but not the Manor. He follows Jason and Marinette and sleeps a night there. 
Then his father starts to search him (Damian) and finds him with Jason
Totally a fight there
Until Alfred comes and makes them to sit down and talk
Jason explains everything, telling Bruce, that the squad doesn’t exist anymore, bc of Talia.
He causally says, that Marinette is his girlfriend, that they somewhat adopted Damian, after Talia was banned.
Bruce tries to wrap his head around this, but slowly accept this new part of his family
It takes some time, but Jason (Red Hood) and Marinette (Scarlett) become a part of the Batfam
They lead the new Miraculous Team in secret, keep in contact with the inner circle of the light
This goes well, until Tim finds out. 
Bruce lashes out again, bc what the fuck- his own child and his wife (they married) are spying for the light?! He tought they destroyes that damned organisation
Damian runs with them
They go to Nanda Parbat, where they meet the new recruits. 
Now, every kwami has a true holder
Balance is perfect as it can be 
Two years later, Bruce still tries to find Damian, in the hope, he isn’t with his older brother and his wife
He still is
Then Ra’s has enough of this drama, talks with the inner circle of the light and the kwamis
Kidnaps the batfam
Explains everything
Like everything
Slowly the batfam understands
Bruce is so proud that two of his sons are true holders, one of them literally can control chaos
The batfam starts to help the inner circle of the light, the other members think, this heroes finally saw the light
I can totally see the lesser memebers dumbfounded faces, when the whole Batfam shows up
Vendal starts to explain
“Batman was trained under Ra’s al Ghul himself, Batwoman followed.”
“Nightwing was trained by Deathstroke.”
“Red Hood was trained by Lady Shiva, Deathstroke and Ra’s al Ghul and is a former member of the squad.”
“Scarlett was trained by myself, Ra’s al Ghul, Lady Shiva, Deathstroke and Batman. She was the leader of the squad.”
“Red Robin was trained, like all the other Robins, by Batman. Lady Shiva took him under his wing for some time.”
“Signal was trained by Batman, Red Hood and Scarlett.”
“Batgirl was trained under Batman, Nightwing and Scarlett.”
“Black Bat grew up in the League and is the daughter of Lady Shiva.”
“Robin is my grandson and the son of Batman. He was trained under Scarlett and Red Hood, when they still were in the squad.”
(Did I forget someone?)
Gaping villians
But when Vendal says, that Batman will be part of the inner circle, as well Red Hood and Scarlett. they loose their absolute shit. 
They fought the whole time with their allies??
Vendal then also says, that this will be the last meeting and they will all forget, that the Batfam is a part of the light
“Well... we can’t take risks, can’t we? We don’t want to repeat an incident with the Young Justice again... because of this, only the members of the inner circle will remember our prupose and the light itself.” 
Batman then says to the JL, that he will leave the League, since this is going nowhere
The Batfamily is now officially a hero group and more loved than the JL, bc they don’t destroy much in their fights and if they do, Bruce Wayne pays. They keep in the shadows, which means, no civilians hurt AND many villians retire, when they hear, that Batman will fully remain in Gotham. They don’t try anything, bc he always seems to know
Okay... this is much more, than I acutally wanted to write and in the end, it didn’t came out as I first thought. But I hope you still like it, bc I like this version better
And it’s in the middle of the night, so if there are any mistakes... I don’t care :)
Masterlist
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heartless-error · 4 years
Text
Broken, not perfect, but together. - Chapter 13
Fandom: DC comics, Batman
Pairings: Jonathan Kent x Damian Wayne (JonDami) & Jason Todd x Timothy Drake (JayTim)
Rating/Tags: Family feels, hurt/comfort, mental health issues, running away, brotherly love, adopted children, fatherhood
Other(s) links: AO3
Broken.
The Batfamily was broken.
It was six years ago, and they had barely stood together since then, trying to stand up despite guilt and regret.
Damian  was sure there was nothing to save, not after losing something that he didn’t know he cared about. But when a new opportunity to get back what they had lost appeared, he cannot help to doubt as his past decisions haunt him again.
If you love somebody, set them free. But you don’t know what you have until it’s gone.
Chapter Summary: He knew exactly what he was doing when he helped Tim and Jason six years ago. But at the same time, he didn’t. No one was prepared to let them go the way they did, not even him. And now, after dealing with the consequences all this time, his heart was about to explode, he couldn't breathe. Because they were there, they were right there. His brothers were in front of him, and he couldn't move, couldn't do anything, because, once again, the weight of truth was about to crush him mercilessly.
Chapter 13
 Now
 Silence.
 The batplane was completely silent.
 Technically not entirely, since like the many trips and flights that had been made with it, could be heard perfectly the ambient sound of the wind brushing and surrounding the plane as it advanced on its way, also the noise of the engines accelerating to reach their destination as quickly as possible, as well of the machines and the control panel echoing at the front of the cabin, with all the breaths and movements of those inside.
However, it was they, the bats in there, who were precisely in silence, without having uttered hardly any unnecessary words since they occupied their seats on the plane and taking extreme care of each of their movements, of their postures. The tension in the place and between them was such that they had the impression that any movement or whispering would unleash a true storm among all, although this was already occurring within each of them, it was preferable to keep it hidden and sheltered for the moment, covered and hidden in nobody’s eyes while they were in a clearly confined space and knowing what was about to happen.
 Bruce was at the front of the batplane, paying attention to the control panel, and gripping the steering wheel with more force than necessary. It was curious to see him like this, tense, inflexible and dressed in civilian clothes, especially when they had already been used to see the figure of The Dark Knight handling that transport with his gloves, the hood and the cloak tangled in the seat, not his father, not Bruce.
Cassandra, curled up in the passenger seat, was the only one who had deigned to sit next to him. Her gaze insistently alternated between the screen of the GPS that was indicating their current position, and in front, where she could contemplate the sky and the clouds that passed through them. But she seemed too impatient and agitated to appreciate anything.
Stephanie was right behind her, but at a safe distance from the control panel and the driver, also curled up on herself and quieter than they’d ever seen her be. Dick, on the other hand, was at the other end of the cabin, away from everyone and lost in his thoughts as he stared at nothing.
 Like him, Damian was there. Farther still, almost to the end of the cabin, sitting awkwardly and with his arms crossed, thoughtful, absorbed in his head and in everything that occupied and prowled around it without stopping.
Sometimes he looked up to capture the blue of the sky and the landscape below his feet, but he couldn’t concentrate to observe it better. He settled into his seat as best he could, trying to find a comfortable position that wouldn’t bother his injuries, something difficult after everything that had happened that morning. He also met Dick’s uneasy gaze several times, Stephanie’s too, but no one said anything, no one moved, they just turned away their eyes to continue silently and in the spiral of their thoughts, allowing the tension to build and the journey to become longer, more harrowing.
 Damian knew the distance from Gotham to Florida was not that much, or at least not that much compared to all the places where he assumed that Tim and Jason could be hiding. After all, it was almost eighteen hours by car, and only about three by plane, less on the batplane. Still, he had the impression that this journey was going on for days, weeks. It was endless, exhausting, and every time he glanced at the clock on the control panel, he suppressed a sigh as he realized that only a few minutes had passed when he thought it had been an hour, even longer.
 The fact that the whole situation felt like a countdown against him, calculating how much was left to ruin all his life and efforts these last six years, didn’t help.
 Damian knew exactly what he was doing when he helped Tim and Jason six years ago. But at the same time, he didn’t.
 Contrary to what some people on the plane were thinking, the idea to run away was not Timothy’s, nor Jason’s. No. The idea was his, all his. 100% Damian’s credit. What’s more, they even doubted at first, they were very surprised when he explained the idea to them, and they partially refused. It seemed crazy when after all at that moment they were being watched strictly by a family who didn’t believe in their relationship and Jason was still recovering from an unwarranted aggression that had meant a total rupture between both sides. Although in the end they ended up agreeing, obviously, which he didn’t regret at all.
He was sure that if the others found out about this, that he had not only been an accomplice, but the leader of the entire operation, they would be much more upset than they had already been, maybe he would even receive another punch. And he would probably start to receive the same questions that had already been asked before and had tried to answer ambiguously: How? Why?
 The “how” was pretty easy.
 At first, a simple call to his best contact was enough: Talia. She didn’t welcome the son she now called failure with open arms, but she did like everything that would benefit her and help her obtain the power she was after. His mother was a woman very aware of her own interests and recognized something that favored them at the time, she knew how to choose her battles well. Erase Tim and Jason from the map, make them disappear, it was one that was definitely worth it, so he didn’t have to convince her to agree.
 Jason was a well-known failed project of Talia, a boy who she revived in the waters of Lazarus’ pit, brainwashed, trained and commanded into battle to cause damage to Bruce and all of Gotham under the poisonous ideas that she had implanted in his damaged and resurrected mind, to later see how he not only reformed and fought again on the side of the bats, but fell in love with the one she most wanted to eliminate.
Timothy, no doubt, had always been a clear obstacle to Talia, even from his Robin days. Something she had been waiting to get rid of and get out of the way as soon as possible at any cost. She manipulated Jason and manipulated him to hate him, to break him, to kill him, because she was conscious of the obsession that his father, his grandfather, had with Timothy. Ra wanted Drake for himself, it was a fact. He wanted him, craved him, chased him, for him he was his perfect detective, the only worthy being who could challenge him, confront him. He wanted him to be his successor, his right hand, wanted him at his mercy and wanted to hand over his empire to him. Empire for which Talia had fought all her life and could lose to the third Robin.
Then, hiding the couple meant making her mistakes and her greatest threat disappear. Talia would gain respect and a big advantage with both vigilantes disappearing, she knew that, and she didn’t hesitate to take it all in immediately. Damian and the others didn’t have to wait a single full day before receiving instructions to get it all started.
 After that, only the most difficult thing remained: the metas. Because no matter how much Tim and Jason changed identities, went to another continent, or avoided cameras, they had been friends of metahumans who could easily find them at any time. Any Super could identify their heartbeats wherever they were, and any Speedster could run around the world for them in seconds. They wouldn’t get very far if Superboy, Impulse, or even Starfire were involved in their search.
 But he didn’t have to do much to fix that problem either because Jonathan volunteered. He didn’t even ask him, he didn’t even know that he was aware of what he was trying to do, but apparently, he was inside from the first moment, even before any plans were formulated. He simply appeared before them with a Kryptonian device sneakily pulled from the fortress of solitude and handed it over to them, assuring the red team that as long as they kept it close, it would block the metas and hide them from everyone without problem. It clearly worked, and too well seeing as how absolutely no one had been able to find them despite the many efforts made.
 So, getting it all done was not as difficult as anyone might think. Especially when nobody suspected them or paid attention. Everyone was too busy focusing on all of Tim and Jason’s movements back then, and he and Jonathan were sixteen and thirteen, respectively. No one knew what was happening until it was too late, until they had been at the airport and left that damn note in the cave.
 Regarding why they did it, he already explained how he was allowed that morning.
 His brothers were tearing apart, little by little. Gotham were taking away a lot of things from them and continued to do so every day. Their vigilante lives began to overwhelm them more and more and the family didn’t help but make it worse with their indifference and their way of dealing with problems, including him.
Damian was sure that if they had not run away, if they had stayed in Gotham and continued with the rhythm they were taking, they would have ended up finally breaking and, with them, their relationship.
 He just knows, he knows that’s what would have happened if he wouldn’t have intervened.
As much as Todd insisted over and over that he didn’t need the attention of the bats around him, that he didn’t want anything to do with the family, his actions indicated how badly he needed approval and apologies from Bruce. Like Tim, who had always depended on that kind of acceptance ever since he was a child and had driven him to seek it wherever he could obtain it. And it didn’t matter how much they both fought for each other, for themselves and their relationship, the rejection of the family, of Bruce, hurt, hurt them, made them suffer despite knowing what could happen, despite having hiding it for years to avoid the problem. They wanted to solve it, they wanted to fix it. But besides all of that, both were also rooted to Gotham and its people in a way that Damian could never empathize, sacrificing and fighting tirelessly for the city until they reached that point of no return where they were, where they sacrificed their lives and his whole being.
Their loyalty and sacrifice for the city, for the bats, was too big, it meant too much to both of them and if they didn’t let them go, if they kept tying up that way, eventually everything would have split them in two, it would have separated them, and they would have allowed it in order to keep the place standing and the bat happy. As always, they were able to consecrate their own happiness for someone else even without wanting to, without realizing it.
 But Damian did it, and he couldn’t allow it. He just couldn’t, much less at that time.
 Damian could lie to others and himself all he wanted, but the need for his brothers to be happy was there. The perspective of them losing what they had because the other bats couldn’t see it, sacrificing their happiness for them again, was too much for him. He thought it was too unfair.
He knew he had been an insufferable brat for years, that he had caused too much trouble, done too much hurt, and could have ruined their lives with his mere presence, but whether they wanted it or not he grew up, they all did, and his relationship with them had improved considerably over the years, too much to let what was happening happen in front of his eyes and stand with arms crossed. Damian’s appreciation for his brothers had grown in a way that he never imagined at first, feeling something that never thought what could feel towards no one, because he and Jason shared a similar past that made them lean on the other without words, and Tim… It was Tim, just like that. Both were patient and annoying until the end, but one day he realized that he loved them and couldn’t see how they were about to collapse.
 They were a weakness, he knew.
 But Damian knew too that he had been a participant in inflicting their suffering, and that moment was the best time to fix it, he could fix it. Because the best way to prevent Gotham, the family, and the vigilante lifestyle from destroying their brothers, was for them to leave everything behind, including everyone, including him. They couldn’t hurt them if they weren’t there. It was that simple.
And that was without doubt his best way to earn their forgiveness, to make amends with them: Give them freedom from all the chains that imprisoned them.
 Jonathan felt the same, he knew it. He owed the red team nothing, not in the same way that Damian did, he didn’t need to feel deserving of their affections or forgiven for his past actions, but Jason and he were friends, and Tim practically raised him with Conner. He was also too fond of them to do anything, and most importantly: he wanted them to stay happy together.
 Anyone would say that he and Jonathan, beyond the brotherly love they felt for the other two, helped them because they reflected too much their own relationship in the elders’. And they would be right.
They didn’t have the same story as them, and they weren’t the same people either, but unintentionally and without knowing they had turned in their greatest reference in terms of relationships, their support to carry theirs forward and, without a doubt, the push they needed to start dating. Their parents seemed not want to see what happened between them back then, as if it didn’t exist and everything followed its normal course, they kept doing it even today. They were both young, had not discussed their sexuality with anyone else and the indifference of their guardians stopped them from doing so. Nor did they know how to cross beyond the line of friendship with the one who was their greatest confidant and puberty is the worst time for human beings. They both felt trapped, confused, and the longest and closest healthy homosexual relationship they ever knew was Tim and Jason, who were in hiding and Damian didn’t even find out about them until the end, but they always seemed to understand and accept their situation more than their own parents.
 Then, when everything exploded, both didn’t hesitate when choosing sides, and not when they helped them escape too. The rejection of Tim and Jason may have affected them as if it had been directed at them, their relationship with their parents was almost irreparable, but they turned that pain into stubbornness and courage to confess  their feelings and help them to leave. Because they wanted them to stay together, they needed them to stay together, since that was their way of showing everyone, themselves, that they could be happy, that they were not in danger. Both Tim and Jason, and them.
 So, yes, they did. They helped them, planned, and carried it out, being fully aware of what they were doing.
 However, it was what came after that they didn’t consider.
 They became so focused on helping those two to escape, that at any moment they didn’t stop to think what would become of them and their surroundings once they left.
 They should have.
 The nightmares, the anxiety, the secrets, and the paranoia became his new normality. The enormous guilt that came with their actions hit them too hard and fast, without giving them time to even assimilate or change it, because once it was done there was no going back.
They both thought they were ready to let Tim and Jason go, but they weren’t. Not them, not their families, not their friends, not even the hero community. No one. The huge gap that their absence left in their teams and families was too big, but they had already disappeared and all that remained was that stupid note along with the consequences it produced.
 The batfamily fell apart like a house of cards in a matter of days, and it could have been in hours if they had not been focused on the search, but the fights continued without rest and the resentment along with the tension didn’t do more than increase over time. The Titans and all the metas who knew the missing ones contributed to the search, but there was no clue, making the situation worse if possible. They were all trying to find a common culprit, or a valid and less painful reason than the one they had to leave because they were unhappy, they even hoped to find them, but they weren’t going to get anything.
And as the days, the weeks, the months went by, the tension increased, everything got worse and both Damian and Jon had to get away from those whose presence could no longer bear, either due to a total loss of confidence after what happened, or because they found themselves seeing themselves as those traitors who had brought suffering to their family and friends.
 Damian couldn’t trust anyone, not anymore, not his father, not Grayson either. He felt like everyone had fallen too high from the pedestal on which he had them and had to watch Bruce fall into another self-destructive spiral where no Robin was going to get him out this time. The betrayal and rejection he had felt from them didn’t allow him to have a civil conversation with none until eleven months after what happened at least, and even with Grayson he needed more time without wanting to yell at him until he was hoarse. Yet, he had to endure seeing how Brown, Batgirl, walked away increasingly because she couldn’t bear to see their faces, and how Cassandra came back from his mission in China to find her lost and broken family, how Alfred completed his tasks silently and not daring to say a word of it too, afraid to bring up the subject and cause again all those discussions both new and old that originated after the disaster.
Jonathan also felt deeply betrayed by his father and his lack of response to what happened, for his inflexible opinion in agreement with Bruce’s and his indifference to what his son felt. Damian knew they had a fight much stronger than Jon had wanted to admit, that he threw more things in his face than he said, but he decided not to pressure him on the subject and respect if at any time he wanted to give more details. Besides that, his boyfriend saw how Conner Kent crumbled at the loss of his Robin, how he looked for him without a break over and over again to the point of even neglecting his responsibilities with his team and his own health.
 All that pain, all that loss, all the tears, the screams, the fights, and the problems, they caused it. All of them. Without hesitation. And the best thing is that they weren’t planning to fix it. No. They would take the secret to the grave if possible, because if there was one thing they couldn’t regret or back down, it was to make Tim and Jason happy, despite the enormous price they had to pay.
 In their poor defense, they didn’t know that everything was going to fall apart like that. They didn’t come to think that the reaction would be so strong, nor the chain of disasters that followed. But it wasn’t until they saw everyone suffering and tearing apart that they realized what they had done, and that everyone would get very angry if they found out about their actions.
 So, they had no choice but to keep quiet and move on, because what else could they do? They hid it all, they studied, went together to prom, moved into their apartment in Metropolis, Damian got a job, Jon is in college, and despite the difficult family situation and missing the red team a lot, they looked for their own happiness and normality where they knew they could find it, where they taught them they could get it.
 And they were fine, really.
 They were together and fine. The weight of guilt was not so big if you shared it, and they both learned to lie fairly well together at an early age, also to continue side by side no matter what. They didn’t even have to lie that much, just pretend, because they never had a clue where Todd and Drake were, the best was not knowing it and the moment they saw them go through the airport gate, they too disappeared for them completely.
Mostly, they couldn’t talk normally with their parents, sometimes they had to be too on guard or alert in case someone discovered something, every now and then everything became too much and they lost control of their emotions, but they always ended up overlapping. They had nightmares in which everyone surrounded them and yelled that it was their fault, in which they saw flashbacks of happy moments turned into true horrors, where they heard resentment, poison towards them and pure hatred. But despite waking up screaming, crying, begging for forgiveness, they didn’t forget the most important thing: they did it for a reason, and they weren’t responsible for everything.
 If you love something you have to let it go, and that’s just what Tim and Jason chose to do. As much as they had been the ones to give them the option, it’s what they chose and they had to respect it, they had to deal with it. They couldn’t tie them to a life of misfortune, nor force them to return when they weren’t even part of the real problem there.
 Damian was determined to do that for as long as possible, to protect their new lives with everything he had, during all of his if necessary, because that decision was the only selfish decision that his brothers had made in a long time, the only one they had made thinking of themselves, and he felt they deserved it, he knew they deserved it. He was going to fight to preserve that.
 For that, maybe he should have tried a lot harder in Zodome to avoid this disaster.
 He had to hold back himself not to curse and fall prey to his anger when Gordon revealed in the batcave that the reason they had found his brothers had been because of the explosion in which he had been involved. He had felt so helpless, because he hadn’t found out what had caused the disaster until that meeting, and it didn’t make it better.
The whole time he thought that the terrorist cell he was chasing was on the island because of its black market and its easy access, didn’t come to imagine that they were going after a hidden supercomputer of the league that they wanted to sabotage and that they would also fail in their attempt, almost killing him and uncovering his lies.
 If he had been faster, if he had been more focused, if he hadn’t been regretting and missing his brothers again, if he had been better, none of this would have happened. They definitely wouldn’t be on their way to Florida.
 He could have prevented so many things. And yet he had failed, failed them, again.
No matter how hard he had fought for them, how long he had resisted, in the end everything had fallen apart because he couldn’t fulfill a simple mission or control his temper.
 It was very frustrating.
 Damian dug his nails into his forearms, squirming in his seat. His back hurt, also the side of his face where Grayson had hit him before. His fingers itched a lot, he wanted his phone back, his comms, something. He wanted to call Jonathan and make sure he was okay, safe, at least hear his voice to be able to calm down. But they had both been isolated from each other and from everyone by the time Damian made his confession.
As they thought it would happen, just when the others learned the truth took all forms of communication and kept them under surveillance. Jon was surely under the strict and impassive gaze of Clark after a warning from his father. As if any of them could jump in at any moment and alert Tim and Jason that they had been caught and they were going for them, when in fact they didn’t know how to contact them or where they were.
 He sighed, felt Grayson’s gaze on him again but completely ignored it. He was tired, angry, and resentful. He felt like an animal on the way to the slaughterhouse, his heart pounding and his mistakes hounding him, reminding him of everything he could have done to prevent this. He didn’t want to talk to anyone, he didn’t want to see anyone. All he wanted to do was scream, get mad, scream more, fight and beg for them to turn around, to stop the plane and all this madness, to go back to Gotham and forget everything they knew so they could get on with their lives like until now.
 But that was already impossible, everything had changed, and they were not going to forget it, they couldn’t.
 Looking straight ahead, Damian remembered Barbara Gordon’s soft grip on his arm before getting on batplane, he remembered the way she leaned, whispered an apology and with an indecipherable look said it.
 “Even if you don’t know it or want to admit it, you need this Damian. You need to see it.”
 He considered his answer, but he just gave her a cold look and got on the plane. He sat in his place, waited for takeoff, and hadn’t moved since, still quiet and waiting for this journey to end and see the destruction of what his life had been until now.
 Everything was still silent; everyone was still quiet.
 Damian didn’t care. After all, he had been six years without speaking, what mattered a little more?
 ~0.0~
 They landed before lunchtime, outside the city, about a thirty-minute walk from the town. They were not detected, and their objective was not to attract the attention to alert the former vigilantes of the place.
 Even after landing, for a few seconds, no one dared to move or say anything at all, even though some of them seemed to be about to get off the plane and begin the search immediately. They all stood still as if they could break a fragile peace that had never existed. The tension seemed to reach its peak just as Bruce got up and began to give directions of the procedure to be followed. Without having Oracle’s help this time to track them down immediately, they had to break up into groups to explore the area and check out the places they already knew Tim and Jason had been seen, hoping to meet them.
 Dick and Cass would go to the local electronics store and its surroundings, where Tim might appear. It was obvious why Grayson chose to search for Drake first, and why Cass was with him, since there was no doubt that Timothy could attack him as soon as he sees him. He didn’t blame him; he would do it too.
Brown would take care of the library, where they saw Jason. She was not in much danger with him if she found him, at least not entirely. Stephanie was not so involved in the conflict and her relationship with Jason had always been neutral, they had a mutual respect that they could use to their advantage this time.
 Damian was evidently forced to go with his father, who was clearly not going to leave him alone on the plane and was watching and controlling him like he was still ten years old and was planning to do something stupid. Much to his regret, he planned to check out the downtown area and where the other two had been seen crossing a pedestrian crossing that morning, having to cover a less specific and greater terrain.
 Great.
 Damian had assumed his complaints would not be heard at all, no matter what he felt, how angry he was or how bad what they were doing was. So, he decided to apply the total ice tactic and be silent all the way to the small town, analyzing the route, the place, thinking how easy it would be to run and alert his brothers before disaster struck. He didn’t, and he didn’t say a word as they all parted, and the search began. Just kept going next to his father, rigid, tense. He felt as if he were outside his own body, in another place, everything seemed out of focus and his nerves were on the surface. It was difficult to breathe, his chest contracted more and more, and he didn’t want to look at the streets, at the people. He feared so much meeting Drake and Todd. Standing next to Bruce looking for them, he felt like the most twisted of the traitors, again.
 The traitor betraying again, what a surprise.
 At least the place wasn’t too bad, for what little he deigned to see. As reported, the town was small and cozy, smelled of the sea and clean air. It was close to the beach and it was a sunny and lively place, very neat and beautiful with a close community made up of families and locals from there along with some tourists. They all seemed quite close and upper-middle class, from what could be seen.
 It was very different from Gotham.
 Laughter, lively conversations and happy sounds of children and adults, accompanied by the sound of the waves in the distance and life in general in the city were heard. It was refreshing, something new, different. There was no fog, no dark alleys, trash, rats, or the constant threat that a madman dressed as a clown would brutally murder you and your children for fun.
 Damian had stopped for a second to look at a lady who was walking his dog -a white chihuahua very ugly, but funny and whose face of sorrow in this life alleviated his anguish a little- when his father’s voice made him turn to him in annoyance.
 “I have brought your phone and comms.” He said to him as he continued walking, urging him to follow him and quite attentive to the area in case he saw any sign of those he had come looking for.
 Damian didn’t answer, he just kept walking beside him.
He knew he wasn’t going to return any of this or stop watching him until he was sure he couldn’t interfere with his plans, but he was informing him of it to gain ground with him. It was always his way of trying to score points, it was a kind of punishment veiled with concern and the usual parental explanation for not looking so bad. The typical “I have punished you with this, but I’m being good, I hope you understand and forgive me because this is your fault for misbehaving, not mine.”
 It won’t work.
 “I’ll give them back to you as soon all of this ends.” He continued saying when seeing that he didn’t obtain an answer.
 Damian rolled his eyes and continued in silence, walking briskly. It hadn’t worked, mostly because he wasn’t thirteen anymore and knew the trick, so he was still angry, a lot.
Bruce had to realize that hadn’t gone as expected, because he heard him sigh and call him again, in a slight tone of reproach.
 “Damian.”
 No answer.
 “Damian Wayne.” He called him again in a severe tone. “Can you speak to me, please?”
 He didn’t speak. What’s more, he looked at a couple that passed right by them as they walked to a black Lab, who seemed very happy to be there. Reminded him a bit of Titus, he missed him, his friend had a good life.
 “You are no longer a child, and I hope you understand that in these situations you are required not to behave as such.”
 He frowned. Really? The trick of maturity wasn’t going to work either right now, much less when the first to treat him like a child it was precisely him, invalidating his opinions and keeping an eye on him. He couldn’t be serious.
 He snorted and kept walking, not wanting his temper to get the better of him again and crossing the crosswalk that he recognized as the one from the photo he had seen on the batcomputer. His heart clenched for a second, he lowered his head holding his breath, because he was stepping on the same ground that his brothers had passed, they had been here and now he was crossing it with his father while they were looking for them.
The chances that they were getting closer to them were more and more real, the option of being found head-on were many and his hands had started to sweat. He didn’t know what he would do if that happened, he didn’t know how he would react if it was Bruce and he who ended up finding them before anyone else.
 “Giving me the silent treatment will not solve anything of this, son.” Bruce ended up saying again, crossing the street in  a tired tone and ignoring the internal struggle that Damian had at that moment.
 At that, the last Robin looked at him angrily, because of what had said in itself, and because he had called him “son”. He had no right to play that trick at the moment, at all. He refused, and he was too upset right now to that.
 “What we’re doing either, but we’re doing it anyway, right?” He finally reproached him with coldness and aversion.
 He listened to Bruce sigh again and kept walking, stepping forward to leave him a little behind and still without looking closely around. He continued going down the street after crossing the pedestrian crossing, staring at the ground and with his heart beating faster and faster. He didn’t want to walk, he didn’t want to do this, he didn’t want to continue arguing, he wanted to go home and hold Jonathan until they couldn’t make out where one began and the other ended.
 “You have to understand that this is necessary.” Bruce justified himself behind him, still in that serious and exhausted tone.
 Damian felt anger wash over him once more, almost rising up his throat and burning it to start screaming and throw words sharp like knives. But they were in public, the goal was not to attract attention and nothing good would come of losing control now.
 They came to an intersection with an avenue, but Damian continued without looking back, hoping to lose sight of his father for as long as possible.
 “For whom?” He asked with annoyance. “Tt.”
 Clearly solely for them. He, Grayson, or whoever couldn’t live with what they had done. But that wasn’t his problem, nor was it anyone’s. They didn’t have to do this, it was unnecessary, but after all Damian was the selfish one for not having said a word about what he did for years.
 Of course.
 He hoped to hear an answer behind him, knowing that his father would try to lecture him, scold him, or make him understand his point of view, but curiously he got nothing. When Damian took a couple of steps across the intersection, he realized that he didn’t listen either the unmistakable Bruce’s steps behind or beside him, they had disappeared.
 He frowned and snorted exasperated.
 “What? Now is it you who’s going to give me the silence treatment?” He complained in annoyance and stopped on his own steps to turn around and look at him, the disgust inside him urged him to start another discussion.
 However, when he caught a glimpse of his father and realized that he was completely still, rigid, standing and watching in awe to his right, fixing his gaze in something, in someone, which was far down the avenue, that disgust quickly transformed into a mixture of anxiety and emotion so strong that Damian could have passed out if he hadn’t been so on guard.
 Slowly, fearfully but curious, he turned his head and followed his father’s stunned gaze to where it had been frozen.
 And he wanted to scream.
 He wanted to scream, cry, laugh, he wanted to run there, wanted to flee, wanted to do many things but felt completely incapable of doing none because like Bruce he froze, was petrified and was unable to react, unable to decide.
 Because they were right there.
 Timothy Drake and Jason Todd were right there. A few meters from them.
 His hands started to tremble, to sweat, he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t, his throat was closed, his lungs could barely function well, his heart was beating so hard he couldn’t hear anything else, his head was in chaos, everything turned and stirred.
 But it didn’t matter, it didn’t matter at all, because they were there, they were just there.
 Damian couldn’t look away, couldn’t do anything but stare intensely, trying to assimilate that it was true, that it was them, in front of him. They were alive, they were fine, they were there, and they still hadn’t realized that they were near, observing them and about to run towards them.
 They were on the sidewalk, talking lively with two women, who seemed to really enjoy their company. Their postures and smiles were relaxed, open. They were side by side and chatting with each other as if there was no other problem in the world, and if he paid enough attention, if he tuned his ears enough, he could hear Jason’s deep voice and Drake’s light laugh in the distance. And they had definitely changed, they had grown. They were more mature, more adults plus attractive if that was possible. Jason still kept his white lock in his hair and his leather jacket, but his posture was less threatening, calmer, it seemed more centered and stable than ever. Tim had cut his hair, and looked shorter if possible, but he kept that soft and genuine smile he never wore while he was in one of the expensive suits he wore at WE.
In the eyes of both there was light, there was life, a shine that he had never seen in them. They carried an aura that he never thought he would witness in them.
 His eyes itched, he could cry, he didn’t know if he had already started to cry. His instincts screamed at him, screamed so much, so many different things and with such force that he didn’t know which ones to follow. One part told him to pick up his father, get away from that street, not alert others and leave in order to keep that light in them forever. But the another yelled at him to run towards them, to approach them suddenly, hug them hard and never let go, because he had missed them so much, and was glad that they were still together and so calm.
 The instincts to go to them seemed to win definitively when Jason’s bigger figure leaned closer to Timothy’s to put his arm around his shoulders, causing the smaller to smile at him and intertwine their hands together without hesitation, where -for a second- an unusual shine on the fingers of both hands caught his eye.
 Rings. That were rings. They wore rings. Wedding rings. Alliances.
 His resolve broke, his mind went blank. Without realizing it, Damian took a step, then another, another. Tentative, automatic, unconscious steps. He still couldn’t barely breathe and now his gaze was focused on their clasped hands, on their posture, in that hug, at their smiles while they were still talking without realizing they were there.
 Just as he was about to start running, a firm and powerful hand grabbed his forearm hard and pulled him back, making him complain and stumble in surprise on his steps. He hadn’t seen that coming, and he turned astonished to see how his father, surprised too, had clung to his arm, and held him in place, shaking his head.
 He looked at him in startled, almost panicked, breathing hard and with a million questions going through his mind, but discarding them all quickly at the fact that he was stopping him from going to his brothers.
 A shrill chime that was too familiar rang out somewhere, but that wasn’t important to him right now.
 Damian shook his arm hard, flustered, grabbed Bruce’s hand, and tried to pull it away from him, shaking his head. But he couldn’t push him away, his father didn’t let him go, he tried to take a step towards his brothers and was pushed back again. He was breathing faster his heart was going to explode.
 “No.” His father said, his voice also broken with nervousness. “Wait. No.”
 He didn’t want to wait. He couldn’t. But the fact that it was precisely Bruce who wanted to wait now, who was stopping him right now, turned his alarms back on and in his agitation, Damian realized that something was wrong, that he was missing something.
 Shaking his head hard and trying to regulate his breathing, he turned his gaze back to the ex-robins to realize that the scene in front of him had changed, that indeed, in his surprise for having them close again and his focus to watching them, he had been missing an important detail.
 A very important detail.
 The women his brothers were talking to were not the only ones on this street, there were more people there, it was full of adults, more groups talking to each other, men and women waiting for something in front of a building. A big one, well-kept, with traffic signs specific that he knew and with a gate of colors, childish. It was now open and from which children were coming out, who were screaming, shouting, laughing, and running to the adults who welcomed them with open arms.
 Wait.
 The adults were parents. This was a fucking school.
 “Dad!”
 “Daddy!”
 Two voices, shrill and childish, repeated those words with genuine joy as they quickly approached Tim and Jason, whose smiles grew up, and they looked fondly at each other.
 A boy and a girl, small, smiling, and excited, entered the scene. Holding hands and running as fast as their short legs allowed them, they finished throwing themselves towards Jason and Tim, laughing happily, with squeals of excitement and a warm welcome.
Jason caught the girl in mid-jump, hugging her tightly and not taking long to cover her face with kisses as she squirmed and laughed out loud, happy in his grip. Tim bent down to extend his arms and receive an effusive hug from the boy, separating shortly to leave the most tender and gentle kiss that Damian had never seen on his cheek while the child allowed himself to be picked up carefully to be hold. After that, they both ended up with smiling children in their arms as they talked, greeted the other and laughed with them.
 “I haven’t said everything.” Barbara said. “You have to see it, Damian.” Barbara said.
 Well.
 Shit.
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bigfan-fanfic · 5 years
Text
Taken Away (Batdad Reader Headcanons)
Requested by an affectionate cherry anon for Batdad who suddenly dies of a heart attack
Sorry everyone wanting fluff - angst ahead!
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You were all out together, having dinner at some run-down diner in one of Gotham’s poorer neighborhoods. They had the best shakes, though.
It’s a nice night. No villains, nothing happening. You’ve been in a wonderful mood, joking and laughing with the boys. Bruce has been extra-affectionate.
And suddenly - something’s wrong.
It starts as a dull pain in the center of your chest, and suddenly it feels like someone’s squeezing you from within.
Dick’s the first to notice something wrong, and he’s already calling 911 by the time you start to slip forward, everything slipping away...
There’s nothing that can be done. Bruce doesn’t lose his calm at first, properly administering CPR until the doctors arrive.
All attempts to resuscitate you fail.
And finally, a doctor in the Thomas and Martha Wayne Memorial Hospital pronounces you deceased.
Dick
Dick is inconsolable
Sometimes he’ll be unable to breathe from how much he misses you.
The trauma and stress of the loss causes him to retire permanently as Nightwing.
He can’t bear to be anywhere near Gotham anymore - the whole city reminds him too much of you.
Eventually he recovers, after attending grief counseling and therapy, as well as lots of support from his friends.
And then, Richard Grayson-Wayne dedicates himself to all the causes you championed in life, ensuring that they wouldn’t falter because of your death.
He becomes what Bruce pretended to be, a true Gotham philanthropist.
Jason
He’s torn between anger and hysterical laughter
He’s angry at having lost you, but at the same time, there’s a slightly relieved part of him that thinks at least you died surrounded by loved ones and not alone at the hands of a villain
It breaks him. He no longer cares about living or dying and throws himself into being the Red Hood, not eating, not drinking...
He goes ballistic, although to honor you, he never once kills - although what he does to these criminals might make them wish he did.
He’s also torn over whether or not to exhume your body and put you in a Lazarus Pit - but who knows what you’d be like when you got out?
Eventually he lets go. But it’s after many years, and the mental toll the anguish has taken on him never really ends. However, the others are there for him when things get rough.
Tim
Tim goes through a period of denial at first.
He acts as though you’re still alive, spending a lot of time talking to thin air through the door of Bruce and your bedroom, as if you were sick and on the other side.
The problem is that there’s nobody to blame - just random, horrible chance. There’s no reason, no snappy solution to prevent it from ever happening again.
He goes into bouts of alternating excess activity and lethargy - he can be doing way too much at once to distract himself, and then the next moment he can be lying on his bed, going for hours at a time, never being able to motivate himself to move
He throws himself into his night work afterwards, dropping out of school to go full time. He can’t protect people from chance, but he will do his utmost to protect them from what he can defend against.
Damian
No one expected Damian to emotionally carry the family
But he does.
He grieves just as much as the others, but it does not consume him. He knows that you wouldn’t have wanted that.
He helps Bruce and Alfred prepare your funeral, and even is the only one of the Batfamily who can bring themselves to say something at the funeral. 
Eventually, he quits being Robin. There’s not enough time. He has to live his life, do all the things he’s ever dreamed of doing, for the both of you. 
Damian calls or texts Dick every day to check up on him and give him positive reassurance. He makes sure Tim is healthy, and slips him a sedative when he gets too wired and tries to work himself into exhaustion. He even visits Jason regularly, just to talk, and to listen and be a shoulder to cry on.
While he quits his job at Robin, he takes over your position as public liaison to the Justice League when he comes of age.
 Damian is able to be happy, even after your death, and he serves as an example to the others, and a beacon of light to drag them from the darkness of their grief.
Alfred
Alfred tries to not let his grief get in the way, but it’s as if he’s lost a son.
He is executor of your will, and he makes sure to care for Bruce and the kids.
But it always feels like something’s missing, as if some vital cog has been removed from life.
He becomes acting head of Wayne Enterprises since Bruce is...indisposed.
He can hardly bear to enter the Batcave, and leaves operations to Barbara. He still does medical operations for Batman.
Damian pulls him out of his funk, and Alfred wholeheartedly assists in bringing the family back, believing it the best way to honor you.
Bruce Batman
Withdraws.
There’s no point to interacting with anyone beyond Alfred, his sons, and the League.
Bruce Wayne ceases to exist. There is only Batman. No more parties, no more Wayne Enterprises, no more public appearances as Bruce. Officially, Bruce’s disappearance is due to a broken heart and grief, and occasional press reports will indicate that he is indeed alive, although not considering returning to public life.
The villains of Gotham and the world need to watch out. Batman no longer seeks to rehabilitate - only arrest and take down.
Eventually Damian, Alfred, and the other boys bring him back. A part of him hates himself for not being able to save you.
But while he never gets over his grief, he lets go of his guilt.
And whenever he sleeps, he dreams of the two of you together once more...
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threewaysdivided · 5 years
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Hey, I know this is like a billion years from where you are in YJ:DW, but I had this thought strike me: what if Danny could see and talk to Jason Todd's ghost? (assuming Red Hood isn't YJ canon) There's so much potential for angst there, especially if Danny is the only one who can see him, and decides to try and get Jason to cross over. Or heck, what if Danny had a hand in Jason's revival?
That’s a neat idea that definitely has some good angst potential.  Have to admit though, I’m not entirely sure how it would work within the ghost-lore headcanons I’m using for YJ:DW specifically.  
I can write a longer post on this if anyone wants but Basically ghosts in the Deathly Weapons-verse break into 2 unrelated categories that get lumped together for looking sort-of-similar on the surface:  Ectoplasmic (the ones we see in DP) and what we’ll call Shades (DC ghosts like Secret, Deadman etc).  Ectoplasmic “ghosts” are their own inter-dimensional entities so they can’t really “revive” in the traditional sense, and “passing on” is pretty much limited to accepting what they are and chilling in the Ghost Zone forever or straight-up discorporealising/ re-dying.  Shade ghosts are the more traditional original-soul-bound-to-the-physical-world; either because external force is trapping them there, or because they were willful/ powerful/ knowledgeable enough to bind themselves.  These ones can potentially be “revived” more easily, and can “pass on” if they’re released from whatever is holding them to this world.
If Jason came back as a Ectoplasmic ghost he’d work the same way DP ghosts do; most likely everyone would be able to see him unless he had some kind of Young Blood-esque visibility condition (in which case anyone who fit the criteria would also see him), and outside of extreme edge-cases revival would be off the table.  (Throw a ‘plasmic ghost into a Lazarus Pit and they’ll just climb back out,  except now wet and mad at you for giving them a skin condition.)
More likely that Jason would come back as a Shade-ghost (especially since he seems intended to revive in some capacity in YJ canon), in which case he might only be visible to certain people.  In such a case though, I’m not sure it would be Danny who sees him. 
I feel like Danny would be the least emotionally and symbolically connected to Robin!Jason of the Wayne-household residents who’ve appeared in YJ:DW.  As mentioned in this post Danny kind of falls in this weird spot of being Dick’s Brother first and foremost where all the other Bat-Kids are Bruce’s Son/Daughter, and he has some personal qualms about Dick handing off the Robin mantle (and how close he feels he can/ “should” be to Jason) to work through because of that.  Outside of the both-technically-death thing, I’m not sure there’d be much reason for Jason’s shade to attach himself to Danny as an anchor compared to Bruce, Dick, Alfred or even possibly Tim or some location of personal significance (unless Danny seeing him is due to the ectoplasm, in which case other ecto-ghosts should see him too).
Although, in this very specific hypothetical, Danny is probably one of the better people Jason’s ghost could attach too.  We’re about a billion years from the end of YJ:DW right now but Grief and Healing is going to be a major theme of the core emotional arc, so by the time Jason comes along Danny’s going to be much better equipped to deal with even his canon death.  Add to that that Danny’s had to work with ecto-ghosts and therefore tangentially-death-related problems since he was 14 and he’d be less thrown by Jason’s “reappearance” and more likely to think “this could be a ghost problem” early on compared to Bruce and Dick whose first thoughts would likely be “this is an illusion caused by losing my mind from guilt/grief”, especially if Danny can’t also see him.  Plus, by that point Dick and Bruce do trust Danny pretty implicitly and let him take point where ghosts are concerned.
If Jason did appear as a Shade ghost, Danny’s process would probably look a little something like this:
Confirm that Jason is, in fact, a ghost and not a product of him going nuts
Work together to find a way to prove this to the others (while also working through any personal feelings and unresolved communication/ conflict issues)
Call in Bruce, Dick and Alfred and let them know
Family drama/ angst ensues
Collectively find Dr Fate/ John Constantine/ any other amenable magic-spiritualist hero who exists on Earth-16 to figure out how best to Deal With This.
As for Danny helping Jason (or other ghosts) to “pass on”, I kind of feel like that’s…. not really his ballpark.  I don’t see Danny as someone who’d compulsively seek out other ghosts and feel obliged to “move them along” unless they were actively in distress or causing damage/ distress/ fear/ pain to others.  Like, Johnny 13 wants to ride his motorcycle at full tilt through the streets of a town, terrifying the citizens?  Get in the thermos or get out.  Johnny 13 wants to ride his motorcycle at full tilt down a long, deserted county road?  Fine, just don’t go into towns or bother other drivers.  He’ll leave them alone so long as they leave other people alone.
In that regard I see Danny as sort of the fixer compared to Jazz’s counsellor - if a ghost is acting up because of some problem (or comes to him for help) then he’ll deal with it so that they can leave, or at least chill out.  And if he can’t fix it (because the solution is harmful, the ghost’s nature/powers are too inherently dangerous or they’re just there being dicks by choice) he’ll capture and send them back to the Ghost Zone (or find someone who can exorcise a Shade) to remove the problem that way.  He might gently float the suggestion, but if Jason wanted to pass on then that would be Jason’s choice to explore unless he specifically asked for help or became distressed/ disruptive enough to force Danny’s hand.
Similarly, I think revivals wouldn’t really be Danny’s ballpark either; it’s not a solution he’d like and he has neither the knowledge, interest, skills or equipment to actually facilitate any of the rare reliable edge-cases methods of resurrection.  Danny prefers to keep to the ‘best left alone’ side of ‘Meddling with dark forces best left alone’ as much as is possible.
Personally I kind of prefer the revival stories where Jason isn’t around until his actual return.  I think there’s more easy gut-punch mileage in most of those versions.  That structure forces the other characters to accept that he’s “not coming back” and try to process all the conflict and pain that it brings, only to then sledgehammer the new status-quo by having him reappear, now changed, at point where his death has significantly altered their dynamics with him, his memory and the other characters.  By comparison, having him come back as a ghost and then revive kind of smooths and flattens that trajectory to one where anyone who can interact with him (even indirectly) gets their emotional healing accelerated, and the status quo eventually slips back closer to how it was (with them mostly just having to adjust to physical limitations of the new form he takes), only to reform fully when he “comes back” for real.
But, anyway, that’s part of larger personal nitpick with the use of “ghosts” in stories.  I find that the meaningful thing about death (and that seems to get weirdly missed by a lot of works) isn’t the moment of impact itself so much as the persisting loss and how the survivors cope.  We are haunted by absence more than by presence.  Most cases of bringing the dead character (or at least their mind/personality) back in some capacity tends to soften the weight of that for me, unless the ghost is meant to function as a some kind of metaphor for the healing/ acceptance/ closure process and “move on” when the other characters do.
Anyway, hope you enjoyed this long and somewhat tangential ramble.  It probably won’t be happening in YJ:DW or YJ:DW-EU but in a story which took a more hardline all-ghosts-are-dead-people/ horror approach to world-building, I can definitely see the someone-seeing-Jason’s-ghost set-up having a lot of angst and uncanny potential.  (I know there are a couple of fics like that already out there but I can’t remember their titles right now, sorry!)
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